Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom
by QuibbleMeThis
Summary: What if instead of locking Harry in his cupboard whenever they didn't want to look at him, the Dursley's had locked him out of the house instead? Maybe this. Self-Sufficient, Independent!Harry.
1. Chapter 1, Discovery

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.

Ch.1 Discovery

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 _Courage doesn't always roar, sometimes courage is that little voice at the end of the day that says 'I'll try again tomorrow'.  
Mary Ann Radmacher_  
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 **August 3rd, 1987**

Oddly enough, the best thing that ever happened to Harry, happened because of the one of worst things.

One fine Summers morning, a few days after his seventh birthday, Harry was outside and at liberty, having been told that he had no chores for the day ("get out, and don't come back before sunset") when he suddenly found himself beset by Dudley and his friends who had recently invented the fine sport they called 'Harry Hunting'. Harry hated that game. They'd already caught him several times and beaten him black and blue, tearing his clothes and breaking his glasses. He'd been in so much trouble when he'd gotten home, for not taking care of the things they had so 'generously given him'. He hadn't been allowed to eat for two days over that one, and again the next few times Dudleys gang had caught him. Luckily this time he'd spotted them before they got too close, so he had a half a block lead, and he could run faster than they could, but he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning and he knew he'd tire quickly, so as he darted around a corner he kept his eyes open, looking for a good place to hide. A thick hedge, or an open gate or a... there! Perfect!

Throwing a quick glance behind him to check they hadn't turned the corner yet, Harry vaulted up onto the concrete rail of a small bridge, grabbed a convenient tree branch and scrambled nimbly down onto the tiny bank of the narrow, weed choked stream that ran under the road. A few more steps and he was under the bridge and safely hidden from sight. Less than a minute later, as he sat trying to catch his breath, he heard his hunters pound past overhead, not even slowing down. Good. He'd escaped.

Harry sat there a few minutes longer while his heart stopped racing and pondered his next move. He didn't particularly want to climb back up to the road yet. They'd probably double back and search for him once they realised they'd lost him. He glanced around the small space, barely two meters across and the width of the two lane street. His attention was caught by the thicket of blackberry brambles growing on the other side of the bridge and realised that, although it looked solid from above, it was actually formed more like a low arch which he could easily walk through, if he crouched a bit. With the vague thought that this could have some potential as a regular hiding spot, Harry decided to explore.

The blackberry thicket was long and dense, running the entire length of the houses on either side, Harry scrambled through the hollow, ducking around the occasional thorny cane, and eventually came to the end of the thicket, under the heavy shade of a fir tree. The brambles blocked the end of the tunnel, but the growth was sparse due to the lack of sunlight and Harry could see there was a clear area on the other side. After assessing the situation he gingerly threaded his way through, gaining only a few shallow scratches on the way.

Once out, he found himself in a narrow canyon-like space, with tall wooden fences on top of a high bank on either side and the little brook running deep down the centre, occasionally widening into small pools. The fence-line on his left didn't follow the stream exactly, instead making an odd zigzag pattern, stretching the width of the property beyond, and then zigging inward several meters leaving an empty triangle of land before the next property started and zagged out again. The ground was covered with long grass and weeds and small bushes and looked utterly wild. It was obvious nobody had been here for years. Harry smiled. Finders Keepers. He set out to explore his new kingdom.

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As Harry lay down in his cupboard that night he considered what he had discovered that day. His little kingdom stretched nearly five hundred meters, following the course of the stream before coming up to another bridge. That bridge was sided with a high brick wall, too tall for anyone to look over, and from what he remembered the other side of the wall had a large bill-board on it. The stream passed through a metal grill and into a large concrete pipe, with no light on the other side. Nobody was going to be getting into his kingdom from that end.

About half-way along, one of the little triangles of land had had a huge pile of broken bricks and boards, cracked doors and broken windows, all obviously thrown over the fence from the property beyond. The broken windows didn't have much use, but the boards and bricks might be useful for something.

But by far the most interesting thing he had found was the large patch of strawberries eight houses along from the blackberry thicket. From what he could see they had spread out under the fence from a garden on the other side and run wild. There had been hundreds of berries there and once he'd convinced himself they were really real, he'd eaten them until he was almost sick! He'd never eaten a strawberry before today. He'd never even had strawberry flavoured milk. His Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't approve of him eating nice things. In fact they didn't really approve of him eating anything at all. He rarely got more than one meal a day. A very small meal, and often he didn't even get that. But today he had eaten strawberries. Even more than that, in the same triangle there had been an apple tree hanging over the fence. He knew it was an apple tree because there had been apples growing on it. And he had eaten some of them too. So today he had eaten Strawberries and Apples... and that had got him thinking. That food had grown in his little kingdom, and there was a lot of empty land spread along the stream, so... what if he used it to grow more food? He knew how to grow things, he'd been looking after his Aunts garden since he was five. He knew how to build garden beds, and fertilise the soil, and plant seeds and seedlings, and look after them as they grow. As long as he could get there often enough he'd be able to look after it, and it wasn't very far off the route he usually walked to school, so once school started he'd be able to visit it every day... But where was he going to get the plants?

Carrots he could do, if he saved the heads when he chopped them up for the Dursleys dinner, he could put them in water and grow them from that like they'd done at school last year, and he once saw someone on a tv gardening show who grew tomatoes by slicing up a tomato and burying the slices, so maybe he could snatch a slice or two when he was making the salad... and in that same show the gardener had grown new plants by cutting little bits off bigger plants, dipping the stems in some powder and then sticking them in little pots! But he didn't know what the powder was. Maybe he could find out.

Well, he knew where he was going next time he was kicked out for the day. He was going to go to the public Library and find some books on growing your own food. Harry had a plan.

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 **Three weeks later.**

Harry emerged from the blackberry thicket and smiled as he gazed around his hidden kingdom, basking in a heady sense of accomplishment he'd never felt before. Already the place was looking rather different. Three of the little triangles of land now sported neat garden beds edged with broken bricks. It hadn't been easy, he'd had to resort to 'borrowing' certain items from his Uncle. That old shovel with the cracked handle, he'd spent a whole day slowly shifting it from hiding spot to spot until he finally had it positioned under the bushes near the front fence ready to be extracted the next time he was kicked out. He'd requisitioned the old deformed fork and trowel set that Dudley had deliberately bent by slamming the shed door on them, and then told Uncle Vernon that Harry had done it (he had no food for two days for that one). He'd taken Fertiliser, acquired one sand-pail at a time every time his chores included yard work, which he had already mixed into the freshly turned soil in preparation for planting. And, most importantly, thirty pounds in five pound notes, liberated from Dudleys overflowing piggy bank when Harry had been ordered to clean his cousins room, and smuggled out of the house in Harrys shoe. Harry was still feeling anxious about that. He didn't like the idea of stealing. It made him feel bad about himself, like maybe the nasty things the Dursleys said about him might be true after all. He'd already decided that he would pay it back when he could, so he hadn't really stolen it, he'd just borrowed it, like the shovel. He'd just have to think up some ways to earn his own money now that he had somewhere to hide it.

He'd spent some of that money yesterday morning. He'd gone to the little nursery, three blocks away, intending to buy some seeds to plant. According to the gardening books at the library early August wasn't the best time to be starting a vegetable garden, but there were still a few things he could plant. He'd intended to buy some seeds for cabbage, lettuce, radishes and spinach, and he had, but to his joy the nursery had also had a 'Sale' display of the 'unsold' seedlings from last month, all scraggly looking and too big for their pots, at only fifty pence a punnet! So, as well as his seeds, Harry was now the proud owner of twelve plants each of squash, zucchini, silverbeet, lettuce, chives and coriander. He'd carried them straight here, it had been difficult getting them down from the bridge without damaging them, he couldn't just drop them over the side like he did with the shovel, but he'd managed, despite having to loiter for several minutes while the street cleared so no one would see him, and now his garden beds had actual plants in them!

But today, with his garden taking shape, Harry had a new project he wanted to try. This morning he had once again hit the shops. At a run down second hand shop he had bought a large cooking pot, a dented ladle, a stirring spoon, cutting knife and vegetable peeler, along with a cheap tin plate, knife, fork and spoon. The lady at the shop counter had looked at his selection somewhat suspiciously, but for once his oversized clothes and skinny frame had worked in his favour and she'd given him the whole lot for three pounds. Once he'd dropped them off at his kingdom he'd headed out again, this time venturing into the supermarket his aunt always refused to go to because they sold 'such cheap and nasty brands and the horrible, tacky tramp at the register had purple hair!'. There he bought a large bag of sugar, three lemons and, after some internal debate and careful counting of money, a bag of self raising flour, a small tub of salt and a small bottle of vegetable oil. Finally he picked up a small bag of barbecue charcoal, paid, and left the supermarket, glancing thoughtfully at an elderly woman laden down with shopping bags as he passed her. Eyes glowing with anticipation he made his way back to his kingdom. Today, he was going to cook! For himself!

He walked past his gardens, smiling happily at his plants, and entered an area he'd carefully prepared over the last few days, following instructions found in an old camping book at the library. He'd cleared away a large circle of grass and dug a small shallow fire pit, barely thirty centimetres across and lined with yet more broken bricks, and into this he placed a big empty fruit tin he'd prepared the previous day, puncturing dozens of holes in the side of the tin using an old nail and a river rock as a hammer. Into the tin he tossed a dozen pieces of charcoal, along with a few scraps of wood and dried grass, which he carefully lit using a cigarette lighter he'd found under Dudleys bed (Harry had no idea why Dudley had a lighter but he had felt justified in taking it, if only to prevent Dudley from burning house down). Watching it carefully until he was sure the charcoal had caught, Harry picked up a bag of apples he'd picked earlier that morning, and, using a short broken plank, which he'd scrubbed and sanded the previous day, as a chopping board, he started to peel and chop the fruit, placing it in the pot at his feet. Once that was done he started on a bag of strawberries, also adding it to the pot. He then halved the lemons and used a spoon to scoop out the flesh, adding it to the mix. Harry fetched a few jars of water from the stream, pouring it over the fruit mix, after which he picked up the pot and carefully balanced it on the bricks of his fire pit, over his now very hot tin of charcoal. Finally he opened the bag of sugar and poured two thirds into the pot after which he settled down beside it and began to gently stir the mixture.

Two hours later Harry grinned with glee as he ladled the last of the hot mixture into one of the many clean jars he'd been retrieving from local rubbish bins ever since he'd read the recipe in the 'what to do with your crop once you've harvested it' section of a gardening book at the library. Twelve jars of Apple and Strawberry jam, cooling in front of him.

And more food growing in his garden.

Harrys grin grew wider as he stepped back over to the fire-pit and flipped the flat bread cooking on the battered old frying pan he'd spotted a neighbour throwing in her bin a few days ago.

He was NEVER going to go hungry ever again.

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Authors note

Well, there we go. My first ever chapter in my first ever fanfic. Please be kind and review.

Please note, this fic is about an almost entirely self sufficient Harry. He won't be a super-rich, super genius, super powerful, Lord Potter-Griffindor-Merlin who could buy half the planet and spends his days sitting in a library reading ancient parseltongue books by Salazar Slytherin about fancy soul-binding rituals. Not that I mind those stories, but they've been done to death. My Harry will be a down to earth, practical, frugal, hard working, D.I. who will barely touch his vault because he simply doesn't need it for more than that years textbooks and potions ingredients. He considers it a waste of money to buy something if he can make it for himself. Thanks to the Dursleys he knows how to cook and clean, he knows how to run a garden and use a hammer. They raised him to be a handyman and he's using those skills to his advantage, and while he will eventually have luxuries (by his standards), they will mostly be luxuries he built with his own two hands.

I got my info about when to plant what from an English gardening website. If you disagree with what Harry grows, take it up with them.

Apple and Strawberry jam recipe was extrapolated from various jam recipes I looked up.

Basic Ingredients for flat bread is flour, baking powder, salt, oil and water  
Mix the dry ingredients, form a well in the middle and slowly mix in oil and water until you have a firm dough, pull off a handful, slap it into a disk, lightly oil and flour the surface and then cook on a hotplate.

Harry decided to save money by using self raising flour instead of buying both plain flour and baking powder, so his flat bread will be slightly more cake-ish, but he's been cooking for the Dursleys since he was four, he knows what he's doing.


	2. Chapter 2, A Day in the Life

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom,

ch.2 A day in the life...

*****************  
 _Courage is an everyday thing. When we look reality squarely in the eye and refuse to back away from our awareness, we are living courage._  
 _Source Unknown_  
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 **26th July 1991.**  
 **9am**

Harry smiled politely at the elderly woman walking out of the supermarket, "Good morning Mrs Ashley, would you like a hand with those?" He said, gesturing at her bags of groceries.

"Good morning Harry, yes please that would be lovely dear" she replied, handing all but two of the bags to the ten year old boy. "How are you Harry? I haven't seen you at the library this week, I was starting to worry" she questioned as they started along the street.

"Oh I'm fine" he replied smiling up at her. "I've just been a bit busy, but I've got some books to return so I'll be coming by on Monday"

"Oh good. We've got a new craft book in this week, all about making wooden boxes. I'll put it aside for you, I know how much you enjoy them"

"Really? Thanks Mrs Ashley!"

They chatted easily for the rest of the 10 minute walk back to Mrs Ashleys house and when they arrived Harry confidently carried the grocery bags through to the kitchen while Mrs Ashley got out her purse.

"Thank you Harry", she said, handing him a five pound note. "You're such a good, hard working boy. Just make sure you take a little bit of time off to play, you hear?"

"Yes Mrs Ashley, Thank you." He replied, pocketing the money as she showed him out the door. He walked swiftly back the way he had come. He liked old Mrs Ashley, not only was she one of his more regular customers, but she also worked at the local library and had been the one who had registered him for a library card, despite the fact that the form hadn't been signed by a parent or guardian.

A few minutes later he was walking back along the row of shops, heading for his previous position outside the supermarket.

"Hey Harry!" He heard from somewhere behind him.

He turned and made his way back towards the shop-keeper standing in his doorway. "Good morning Mr Challoner"

"Good Morning Harry, I've got a job for you if you want, it should only take you an hour or so. Mary's been off sick the last few days and I've been too busy to tidy the shelves"  
"Sure thing Mr Challoner" He replied, entering the 'Toy & Hobby' shop and heading for the shelves nearest the counter. "Is Mary ok?"

"Oh yes, it's just a cold, she'll be back in a day or two...

 **12pm**

Harry smiled as he returned to the supermarket for the last time that day, this time heading through the doors and picking up a shopping basket. He'd done well this morning. Mr Challoner had given him £15 for tidying the shelves and he'd made £35 carrying groceries for the elderly ladies of Little Whinging, bringing him up to £50 for the day. He picked up a large tub of Honey, a small knob of Ham, a large bag of plain flour, a box of yeast and a bottle of milk. Paying, he left the store and walked into the butchers shop a few doors up.

"Hi, Mr Thomlin."

"Hello Harry, what can I get you today?"

"Ummmm... Those pork chops look nice. I'll get one of those please"

"One pork chop coming right up!" He said grabbing the one of the larger chops and wrapping it up. "That'll be 70p Harry".

Harry handed over some coins and tucked the meat in with the groceries. "Thanks Mr Thomlin, see you tomorrow."

"Take care, Harry"

Ten minutes later Harry glanced around casually, and then, with practiced ease, vaulted over the bridge railing and swung down to the ground below, moving quickly under the bridge, through the Blackberry thicket and entering his private refuge. As always he paused and gazed over his little kingdom, a small proud smile on his lips. It had changed greatly from the abandoned grass and weeds it had been when he first found it. Now it was covered by extensive, well tended garden beds planted with flourishing vegetables, herbs, neatly staked tomatoes and bean vines on a string trellis. Further upstream there were several small fruit trees followed by a dense patch of corn almost ready for harvesting and beyond that a stand of sunflowers were coming into bloom.

Harry walked past the first garden beds and towards the cook house. The site of his original fire pit had also evolved over the years and was now occupied by a small building, dug partially into the ground with walls and two chimneys built from broken bricks and cement. The window frames were filled with irregular pieces of glass carefully cemented together at the edges to form larger panes and it was roofed with a motley assortment of building materials all scavenged from the ever growing pile downstream. It didn't look like much from the outside, but it was stable and waterproof. To the left of this building stood a small greenhouse, made almost entirely from window frames paned with more pieced together glass, and filled with trays of seedlings, the ground between the structures was paved with bricks and river stones.  
Harry opened the somewhat incongruous carved wooden door and descended a few stairs to the sunken room beyond. Crossing the room he opened another door and descended another short flight of stairs, entering the small cellar he'd built last spring. It had been the most challenging thing he'd built so far, dug deep into the ground and built entirely from two layers of broken bricks, with a domed roof which was covered with soil and turf above. He'd got the idea when he'd been researching old methods of storing food, from before refrigerators were invented, and used the D.I.Y building books from the library to plan it, carefully researching methods and techniques over the preceding winter, bringing in bags of cement one at a time. It had taken months to build, but he'd finally got it done and lined it with shelves and he was very happy with the result. This room was dry, cool and dark all year round, perfect for storing food. The shelves were packed full with neatly labelled jars of preserved fruit and vegetables, there were containers of dried produce, bunches of dried herbs, onions and garlic hung from the ceiling. There was more food than he could possibly eat in here and he loved it.

Harry unloaded his groceries onto the appropriate shelves, then grabbed the knob of ham, a tub of butter and two bread rolls he'd baked that morning, along with the bottle of milk, taking them back up into the well lit room above. Leaving them on the bench he grabbed a small handmade basket and headed back out into the garden, picking lettuce and rocket, a few snow peas and a sprig of basil. He washed his selection at the stream, snatching a handful of water-cress while he was there, headed back inside, put together a couple of ham and salad rolls and poured himself a large glass of milk.

He took his meal outside and sat down to eat, contentedly surveying his domain. His private paradise. His life had changed so much since he found this place. He barely saw the Dursleys any more. He still slept there, in his little cupboard under the stairs, but that was pretty much all he did. Every morning he got up and left at 6am, before they awoke, and he didn't return until 9pm, letting himself in with his own key (which he'd had cut himself after borrowing the spare one day) and going straight back to his cupboard to sleep off the days exertions. They didn't feed him, he bought his own clothes and school supplies and did his own laundry. He'd even organised and paid for his own glasses from an optometrist in Guildford. He couldn't actually remember the last time any of them had spoken to him. Early on they had tried to make him stay to do household chores, but the threat of 'no food' no longer had any power over him and, with the exception of Dudley, they had never been physically abusive past the occasional shove or slap, so they really had nothing left to threaten him with. Eventually they had settled on just ignoring him completely. He often wondered why he bothered going back at all. All his belongings, his school books, his clothes, his money, were kept here. All they supplied was a roof at night. But then the weather would turn bad, or Winter would come and he would remember that a nice solid roof was not a trivial thing. His hut was waterproof, but poorly insulated. It got very cold here at night, especially in winter. He tended to spend most of his free time at the Library during the coldest months. No, until he found somewhere else to live he'd just have to keep going back. Besides, one of the few things they did do for him that he couldn't do for himself was keep him enrolled at school. Just a few days ago he'd entered his cupboard and found enrolment papers and info brochures for Stonewall High sitting on his pillow. It had been a relief to see them there, he'd been dreading the idea of having to actually talk to his Aunt and Uncle about where he'd be going. From what he'd heard Stonewall was an average high school, not 'top-notch' but not dreadful either, but the best thing about it, as far as he was concerned, was that Dudley wouldn't be there. Dudley would be going to a private boarding school called 'Smeltings', he'd been boasting about it for months. Harry was definitely looking forward to living in an entirely Dudley Free Zone.

Finishing his lunch Harry rinsed his plate and glass at the stream and headed back into the hut. He pulled out todays earnings and knelt next to the stairs by the door. Pulling out a couple of bricks in the wall, he reached into the brick lined cavity beyond, brought out a large biscuit tin and opened it. The tin was filled with money, neatly sorted and stacked, Harry picked up a small ledger book and opened it to note down todays earnings and spendings. He'd spent just over £8 on food, so, not including coins, he had £40 to add to his savings. Bringing his total savings to... £17,935.

Of course, he didn't keep it all in this tin. He wasn't that naive. He had separate bundles of £1000 pounds each, buried in caches throughout his gardens. In just over five years, when he turned 16, he'd be able to open a bank account without needing a guardians permission and then he could put the money there, but for now he'd have to make do with hiding it in the garden. Still he was very proud of the amount of money he'd earned over the last four years. He spent two hours every day after school, and all of every morning on the weekends and holidays, carrying groceries and doing odd jobs for the local shop-owners, averaging an income of about £100 a week, more during holidays. Of that money he spent maybe £20 a week, if that, on food and other supplies. The rest of it he saved. He was going to need it when he was older. He had no illusions that his Aunt and Uncle would continue to house him once he turned 18 and they weren't legally obliged to keep him. But that was alright. Over the last few years Harry had made a plan. He knew that his hidden kingdom wasn't actually his. Not really. But, one day, if he saved enough money, he could buy a place that would be his. A small house out in the country, with a lot of land where he could grow food and maybe even keep some chickens and other animals. That was his plan. His dream. His goal. And he was determined to make it happen.

He closed the tin, returned it to its hiding place and headed back outside, circling round away from the greenhouses to another paved area on the other side of the hut. Here stood his first building, the one he'd built back when he really didn't know what he was doing. It was low-roofed and somewhat lopsided and he often found himself repairing it, but he liked being able to look at it next to his hut and seeing how much progress he'd made. He'd originally built it as a rain shelter, but these days he used it as his tool shed. He opened the doors and started setting himself up to work on his latest project. He was making a wooden table and a chair for his hut. He already had an old collapsible card table and a folding chair, but over the last few years he'd discovered something about himself. He liked making things. He liked using tools and working with his hands. He enjoyed the challenge of planning a project and then making it real. He felt a real sense of satisfaction when he looked at a something useful with the knowledge that 'I made that!'. Over the years, at school, they'd been taught the basics of various crafts, like sewing, knitting, paper-mache, basket weaving and pottery and they were always his favourite classes. He always finished the projects and, with the exception of paper-mache and pottery, he had kept on doing them on his own time, and the only reason he'd not continued with pottery was because he didn't know where to buy clay, and had no way of firing it. (The way his teacher had kept referring to his creation as 'Potter-ree', with much winking and nudging and chuckling might have had something to do with it too). He had several carry bags and simple items of clothing he had sewn himself, he knitted himself scarves and hats for winter, last year he'd even knitted himself a jumper, unravelling the yarn from a much larger garment he'd bought for 50p at a car boot sale. His cellar shelves were dotted with the many baskets he'd made, he enjoyed trying new recipes and experimenting with old ones, and he had gained a reputation at the local library as having an almost obsessive interest in DIY, craft and gardening books. He'd gained a lot of experience working with wood while building his hut, and later putting together the shelves and benches. Now he had given himself the challenge of making a table and chair. So far he had all the pieces for the table frame assembled, he just needed to put together the table top...

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 **5pm**

Harry put his tools and nearly finished table back in the shed. The table top was completed and partially sanded. Tomorrow he'd finish sanding it and hopefully give it it's first coat of Danish oil. He was very happy with the way his project was going. He headed down to the stream and started washing the wood dust and sweat from his face and arms but on touching the water he abruptly changed his mind, stripped off all his clothes, waded forward and submerged himself completely in the cool, hip deep water. The pool here hadn't used to be this deep, but he'd pulled a lot of big stones out to use for various things, and it was much deeper now. Shivering slightly in the chilly water he reached over to a small plastic box sitting between two rocks on the bank, pulled out a bar of 'natural' soap and rubbed it briskly over his hair, quickly working up a lather then dunking himself to rinse it out. The natural soap was more expensive than most of the other brands, but it was safe to use in the stream without contaminating the water, so he felt it was worth the extra money. He relaxed in the water for a few more minutes then gathered up his dirty clothes, made his way back into the hut, dried himself off and dressed in a clean t-shirt and pants. Crossing to the 'cooking' side of the hut he efficiently set up a pot of barbecue charcoal under the smaller chimney and set it alight. Leaving that to heat up properly he grabbed his gathering basket and headed back outside to pick tonights salad.

Half an hour later Harry was once again sitting outside in the early evening air enjoying his perfectly cooked and seasoned pork chop, salad, new potatoes and bread roll with yet another glass of milk, while an apple and blackberry dumpling baked slowly in the hut behind him. The stream flowed peacefully in front of him, the sky was blue above him and all was quiet and serene. Life was very good.

Unfortunately, that was all about to change.


	3. Chapter 3, I'm a What?

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom,

ch.3 I'm a What?

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 _Courage is the power to let go of the familiar._

 _Mary Byrant_  
*****************

When Harry let himself into the house that night he immediately knew that something was wrong. The T.V. wasn't on and the silence was filled with a tension so thick that he could feel it pressing down on him like a blanket of doom.

"Boy! Get in here!" Oh... Crap.

Harry stepped hesitantly into the sitting room, warily eying his Aunt and Uncle, who were both staring at him with a strange look of angry anxiety in their eyes.

"Your Aunt and I have decided that you're getting too big for the cupboard. So from now on you'll sleep in Dudleys second bedroom. Go move your things." Vernon ground out abruptly.

Harry blinked at them.

"Well? Go on then!"

"... Ok ..." He turned to leave, then turned back, "Um... Thank you".

Still trying to wrap his head around this sudden turn of events, Harry wandered over to his cupboard and quickly gathered up his bedding, carefully holding them so that the ancient, patched, upper sheet hid the much better, cleaner, lower blankets, and hesitantly ascended the staircase. He hadn't been up here in years! He quietly entered his appointed room and closed the door behind him. He sat down on his new bed (an actual bed!) settled his bedding on the bare mattress and stared around his new bedroom in bewildered wonder.

What on earth was that about?

Over the next few nights it just got stranger. Harry still left early in the morning, as usual, but every evening when he returned he could feel the terrible tension in the air as they silently watched him walk up the stairs. His Aunt and Uncle were having constant whispered arguments, and he could hear Uncle Vernon pacing restlessly in the night. Harry had no idea what was going on, he couldn't think of anything he had done to cause this, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it had something to do with him.  
It all came to a head on Sunday. He walked in at 9pm as usual and was greeted with a bellow of "Where the hell have you been?"  
"Huh?" Harry eloquently replied, staring wide eyed at his Uncles alarmingly purple face.

"Never mind. Get in the Car. We're leaving." Harry found himself unceremoniously frog-marched back out the door and stuffed into the backseat of the car, with his cousin sulkily getting in the other side. Doors slammed, tyres squealed and Little Whinging was quickly left behind.

"...Huh?"

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 **July 31st, 1991**  
 **6.40pm**

Harry got off the train at Guildford station and wearily dragged himself, his owl and his new trunk over to the bus terminal to wait for the next bus to Little Whinging. He was still trying to wrap his head around the events of the last few days.

He'd been kidnapped by his relatives and forced to join them on a cross-country road trip with no fixed destination, apparently running away from someone. Harry had started seriously wondering if Uncle Vernon had somehow got on the bad side of some organised crime gang. Could it be gambling debts? He couldn't think of any other explanation. Whatever it was, he really wished they had left him behind. He'd missed several meals and was forced into closer interaction with his relatives than he'd had to endure in a very long time. Not good. Very not good. Still, given Uncle Vernon's erratic behaviour, Harry had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and had kept his head down and his mouth shut, even when he'd been made to sleep on the floor of a hut on a rock in the sea (very poorly built. His was better!) and then, at the stroke of midnight, a giant had knocked down the door (See! Obviously shoddy workmanship!) and proceeded to tell him that magic was real, and that he, Harry Potter, was a wizard!

A Wizard!

Not only that, but he would apparently be going to a magical boarding school! Harry was in two minds about that. Yes he wanted to learn magic, even with just the small things Hagrid had done he could see how very useful magic could potentially be. But a boarding school? Away from his little kingdom for most of the year? It would completely de-rail his planting schedule! He'd be forced to actually BUY all his food over the holidays, and he doubted he'd be able to earn much money during the school year either. But from the way Hagrid had talked he wasn't going to be given much choice. It was a done deal and he'd just have to make the best of it.

So, the next morning he had been kidnapped yet again, this time by Hagrid, not even saying goodbye to his relatives before they left, taking the little boat, thereby stranding the Dursleys on the island for who knows how long, and travelling by train to London, to a place called Diagon Alley, to buy his school supplies.

Gringotts had been an eye-opener and had slightly calmed his worry about earning money. According to Griphook the Goblin (a real, live Goblin!) a Galleon was worth a little over five pounds, and there had been thousands of Galleons in his vault. He wasn't sure how many. He'd asked but, according to Griphook, it wasn't up to Gringotts to keep an inventory of the contents of a vault. They simply provided the vault space and security. So if he wanted to know how much money he had he would need to go back and count it himself, and he was definitely going to do that, but just from what he saw he felt there might be enough there to buy a modest sized property once he'd graduated, as long as he was frugal until then.

The Bus finally arrived and, after a short debate with the bus-driver on whether or not caged owls were permitted on public busses, Harry loaded himself and his belongings onto a seat. He spent the half hour ride contemplating all the things he'd bought today, rather annoyed that Hagrid had insisted on buying everything new, although to be fair he hadn't seen any second hand shops, he'd have to look into that. Some of the purchases had been entirely unnecessary. He had a perfectly good set of scales already. He'd bought them at the local second hand shop and they worked very well. Admittedly they were cast iron, not brass, and they were very heavy, but surely the metal wasn't that important? But Hagrid had insisted on their buying everything that was on the list, and nothing that wasn't. There had been several books in the bookshop that had looked very useful, Hagrid had needed to drag Harry away from 'Taste the Magic: a housewitches guide to creating delicious meals and scrumptious snacks', he'd taken it from him and tossed it back on the shelf exclaiming

"Eh, Harry, you don't need that! You'll get plenty of food at Hogwarts, don't you worry."

In fact Hagrid hadn't let Harry get any extra books at all, annoying him greatly, although he'd tried not to show it. He had forgiven Hagrid slightly when he had turned up with a beautiful Snowy Owl and given it to Harry as a Birthday present. Although he couldn't help wondering, would Hagrid have bought it if it hadn't been on the list?

The bus reached his stop so Harry hauled himself and his belongings back onto the footpath and started towards his bridge, two blocks away. Really, the trunk and cage were very bulky and awkward. He wasn't looking forward to getting them down off the bridge, or back up again for that matter, but there was no way he was keeping them at the Dursleys house. Who knew what they'd do to them!

Finally he reached the bridge, got everything down, wrestled them through the brambles, ignoring the reproachful looks the owl gave him as she was jostled, and dragged them down the stairs into his hut where he shoved them in the corner. No, he really wasn't looking forward to getting it all out again, but he could figure that out later. He was too tired to worry about it now. He'd got much less sleep than usual last night, add to that a very busy, stressful day and he was rightfully exhausted. Right now he was going to ignore everything that had happened. He'd deal with it tomorrow. Right now, it was dinner time.

/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\

 **1st August, 1991**  
 **6am**

Harry left the house, locking the door behind him, and started down the silent street. The Dursleys hadn't returned yet, not that Harry was surprised. It had taken a full night and day to drive to wherever that island was, and who knew how long it had taken them to get back to the mainland without the boat that Hagrid had taken. For all he knew they were still stuck there on that little island with no food. Harry knew he should feel some kind of worry, or sympathy about that, but all he could feel was amused. Lets see how they liked being cold and hungry! He did, however, resolve to avoid them even more than usual once they returned. What with the missing boat and Dudleys tail, he didn't think they'd be at all happy to see him.

Once he reached his kingdom he looked over his larder and, after getting rid of the milk that had gone off in his absence, decided on honey and oat flat bread with jam for breakfast. He set up a pot of heat beads and mixed up the ingredients, once again pondering about the magical cook book he'd seen the day before. He really wanted to compare magical and non-magical cooking. Maybe they had spells that could stop milk from going off.

He cooked his breakfast and took it outside, with a glass of freshly made apple and strawberry juice to replace his usual milk. Once he was done he looked at his wrist watch, seven o'clock. Normally he would work in his gardens until eight forty five, when he would head out to earn some money. There were several trays of seedlings ready to plant, but he wasn't sure there was much point if he was heading off to boarding school in a month. He decided to instead have a look at an item he had found in his vault yesterday. It was a small, plain, but to his eyes very well made, rectangular wooden box with the words 'Potter Family Archive' carved into the lid. As far as he could tell it had been the only thing his vault, apart from the money.

He'd spotted the Archive box half buried under coins at the back of the vault and picked it up to have a closer look. The thought that it might hold some photos of his parents had prompted him to put it in his bag. He wasn't sure if Hagrid had seen him take it, he'd been leaning against the door clutching his stomach at the time, but when he had stuck so rigidly to the school shopping list Harry had decided not to mention it, just in case Hagrid made him put it back.

He took the box outside and sat down, looking for a clasp or a hinge, but it appeared to be seamless. He pondered that for a while before he remembered something he'd seen the day before. One of the shop assistants had opened the cash box not with a key, but by tapping on the lid with her wand. Maybe that was how this box worked? He put the box on the ground, darted inside, grabbed his wand, dashed back out again, then crouched and, holding his breath, gently tapped the writing on the box.

/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\

/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\/*\

Another chapter done.

Regarding Harrys Vault - I'm completely ignoring fanon for this, and basing Gringots only on how it was was described in the books. And in the books Gringots comes across more as a high security storage facility than an actual 'muggle style' bank. Wizards keep objects like the Philosophers Stone in a vault with no money, the Lestrange vault is crammed with knick knacks, treasures and non-money items. Harry never receives bank statements, they never mention him getting interest. The closest we get to it acting like a 'real' bank when Sirius 'Owl Orders' the Firebolt for Harry. It makes much more sense, canonically, for a vault to be a just a big safe-deposit box. All the Goblins really do is provide security, and facilitate deposits and withdrawals. Plus, that allows me to avoid the whole 'Potter Accounts' mess that most fan-fics get bogged down in. Harry isn't rich, no one has been stealing from him, and there will be no 'shopping trip/spending spree/money-fixes-everything-montage'. Harry is just too frugal and practical for that.


	4. Chapter 4, The Potter Family Archive

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.

ch4 The Potter Family Archive

*****************  
To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that.  
St. Teresa of Avila  
*****************

WHOOOMPH

Harry fell backwards in shock as the small box in front of him suddenly became larger. Much, much, larger. And a different shape too. He slowly climbed to his feet, feeling somewhat out of his depth, staring wide eyed at what had appeared in place of the little box.

Facing him was a full size wooden door in a door frame. A real, solid, oak door, with a doorknob and the words 'Potter Family Archive' carved into it in old fashioned lettering. Harry circled around the structure, each side was a plain wooden wall, the same width as the doorframe. He reached the door again and hesitantly placed his hand on the doorknob.

The door opened easily and Harry stepped inside, realising with wonder that it was much bigger on the inside. The interior was well lit, with sunlight pouring down through an enormous skylight in the roof. The wall opposite the door was lined with shelves, holding a number of small boxes that looked just like the archive had before it had been enlarged, although the writing looked like individual names. On the wall to his right was an alcove holding a single ancient looking leather bound book and to his left a large tapestry hung, with the words 'The Honourable House of Potter' emblazoned at the top, and 'Fortis per Obscuritate' below that and the rest of the tapestry taken up with what looked like a family tree. He walked towards it eagerly, looking for his parents names... There they were at the bottom. James Charlus Potter married to Lily Marie Evans. And below them Henry James Potter.

Wait... Henry? He looked again. Yes it definitely said Henry. He guessed it wasn't too surprising, Harry was often used as a nickname for Henry, the same way Bob was for Robert and Bill for William. He just hadn't realised that Harry wasn't his official name. He wondered if Aunt Petunia knew, she'd often complained that 'Harry' was a 'nasty, common name'. Something he'd found a bit odd, because wasn't one of the Royal Princes called Harry? How could it be 'common' if it was used by Royalty? He'd certainly never heard of a 'Prince Dudley'!

Harry put the question of his name aside for now and looked back at his family tree, tracing the line up from his father James Charlus, through his grandparents Charles Richard Potter married to Dorea Celeste Black, then Richard Bob Potter, Robert Harry Potter, Henry Jimmy Potter, James Bert Potter, Robert Charles Potter (Stuart), and right at the top Charles Edward Stuart.

Harry blinked and read that one again. Charles Edward Stuart b.1720-d.1788 married to Ignatia Augusta Peverell b1736-d1770, their son Robert Charles Potter (Stuart) b.1755-d.1898 married to Sarah Greenfield b1755-d.1801

Had Robert Charles changed his last name? Why?

For some reason the family tree didn't go any further back than that. Harry looked back over the tapestry again, noting that many of his earlier ancestors were well over one hundred years old when they died, he also noted that a large number of the people, seventeen of them in fact, including his father's older sister Eleanor, all had the same year of death. 1943. Harry frowned, wondering what had happened for them all to die at the same time. At least it explained why he had been placed with Petunia and Vernon, they really were the only family he had left, he thought mournfully.

Harry turned away from the Tapestry and crossed to the book on the opposite wall. It was a large book with beautifully tooled leather binding, the cover read 'Origin and Historie of the Honourable House of Potter' and again below that were the same words from the tapestry 'Fortis per Obscuritate'. Harry wondered what they meant.

He opened the book carefully and started reading, his eyebrows slowly climbing higher and higher until the alarm on his wrist watch beeped, letting him know it was 8.45am. Harry blinked dazedly and closed the book, then stood staring at it for a few moments before he turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him. He looked at it consideringly, then experimentally tapped the words with his wand. Straight away the little building reverted to it's former box form. Harry picked it up and took it back into the hut, he hesitated slightly, then walked over and put it in the hidden compartment with the money tin.

Straightening up he stuffed one of his cloth shopping bags into his pocket and headed out to earn some money. Suddenly he grinned. His status was rising fast this week. Just a few days ago he was Harry Potter, not-quite-homeless-street-kid. Yesterday he discovered he was Harry Potter, Wizard and 'Boy-who-Lived' and now, today, apparently he was Henry James Potter of the Honourable House of Potter, Rightful King of England! Harry sniggered as he reached the supermarket and stopped at his usual spot just outside the doors.

"Good morning Mrs Jones, would you like a hand with those?"

l}={}={}={l

As Harry worked his way through the morning he slowly absorbed what he had learned about his family. Apparently Great-Whatever-Grandfather, Charles Edward Stuart was the grandson of King James the second, who was deposed by an act of Parliament in 1688 and replaced with his eldest daughter Mary's protestant husband, who was crowned William III.

According to the book it was all very legal, but in 1745 Charles tried to invade England to regain the throne for his family. He was ultimately defeated and spent some time on the run, hiding in the moors of Scotland, where he met and, after a somewhat whirlwind courtship, married the nineteen year old witch, Ignatia Peverell in 1746 and brought her back to France with him. The marriage was not a happy one. Ignatia's father strongly objected to his only child marrying a muggle and Charles was frequently blatantly unfaithful to his young wife, however ten years later Ignatia gave birth to Charles' first son, Robert Charles Stuart. Not long after this Ignatia's father died and Ignatia started taking her young son on regular long visits to stay with her mother in Scotland.

Robert had regular contact with his father throughout his childhood but as he grew older he adamantly declared that he had no intention of getting mixed up in 'petty muggle politics and religious insanity and getting my head chopped off like Great-Uncle Charles when they inevitably catch me using magic and decide I'm in league with the devil!' and was actually rather exasperated with his fathers obsession with the subject. After his mothers death in 1770, and his fathers second marriage in 1772 when Robert was 18, Robert, being fully integrated into English magical society, had very little contact with his father and, with his grandmother Peverell's support, assumed the name 'Potter' as it attracted less attention than Stuart. After his fathers death in 1788 Robert secretly went to most of the muggles who knew about him and his mother and cast a spell called 'Obliviate' which made them forget that Charles had ever married Ignatia or had a son called Robert, and in doing so he had effectively erased himself from the muggle history books.

Robert chose the name 'Potter' to reflect his hobby and eventual profession of crafting enchanted ceramics. Apparently he was very good at this, the Peverells were famous for their enchanting skills, and his Mother and Grandmother had taught him everything they knew.

According to the book, The House of Potter had been notable Artisans and Crafters of enchanted items in various fields ever since, and, while never especially wealthy or famous, they had generally been comfortably 'well off' and well respected as a family. The only acknowledgement of their 'Royal' background lay in the family tradition of naming their children after Kings and Queens of Great Britain.

The family motto, 'Fortis per Obscuritate' translated to 'Strength through Obscurity' or, in Roberts words, 'If you stand above the crowd you make of yourself an excellent target, therefore be good at what you do but do not boast of greatness, lest you be struck down by those who wish to take your place.'

As far as Harry could tell, each of the boxes on the shelves in the archive contained the tools, journals, workbooks and other property of the family member whose name was on the lid. Thereby preserving the family knowledge for future generations. Harry was elated at this discovery. Who cared about being King of England? Harry came from a long line of Crafters and Artisans and now he had all their knowledge and experience at his fingertips! Harry cackled gleefully, causing Mrs McKinty to look at him sideways as he carried her groceries to her apartment. He couldn't wait to get back to his kingdom and start exploring his heritage.

l}={}={}={l

Harry returned to his kingdom just after noon with his usual small bag of groceries, and a whopping £68 in his pocket. He'd mentioned to a few of his regulars that some lawyers had turned up on his birthday, a few days ago, and the outcome was that in September he was being sent off to the same boarding school his parents had attended, "turns out they set up a trust fund to cover my education! I had no idea!". His customers had responded by congratulating him and paying him more money than usual to 'buy yourself something nice, dear'. He thought it was a bit odd that they responded to news that he wasn't poor by giving him more money, but he wasn't going to complain! Maybe he'd be able to get a car to go with his house and land.

Harry put away his groceries, mixed up a honey, soy and garlic marinade, chopped up todays two chicken thighs and left them in the pantry to marinate. Then he made himself some lunch, resolutely resisting returning to the archive until after he'd eaten. He got out his money tin and entered todays earnings into the ledger, deciding that it would be a good idea to dig up all his money and store it in his vault rather than leave it buried here unattended. He'd keep some cash on hand, but there was no way he was going to store it all in his school trunk where it could be stolen or 'confiscated'.

Chores done, Harry eagerly put away his money tin and pulled out the archive, heading outside to set it up, grabbing a notepad and pencil on the way out. Placing the archive on the paved area in front of his tool shed Harry gently tapped the box with his wand and opened the door when it appeared.

Harry settled down on the floor with the 'Historie' book and flipped to the last entry, intending to work his way backwards and take notes to decide which boxes he should investigate first. To his surprise, tucked between the pages of the book he found several loose sheets of parchment covered in neat writing, the heading at the top declaring it to be 'An Overview of the History of the House of Potter, Focussing primarily on the Primary Occupation and Notable Achievements of Family Members who have left an Archive Box, In order to facilitate easier use of this Archive, By Lily Potter nee Evans'

His mother had written this! And it looked like she had done the same thing he had been intending to do! Holding the parchment almost reverently, Harry mentally blew his mother a kiss and started to read.


	5. Chapter 5, A Very Talented Family

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.

ch5 A Talented Family

*****************  
 _Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction._  
 _E. F. Schumacker_  
*****************

 **An Overview of the History of the House of Potter** ,  
 **Focussing primarily on the Primary Occupation and Notable Achievements of Family Members who have left an Archive Box,**  
 **In order to allow easier use of this Archive**  
By Lily Potter nee Evans.

 **FAMILY**  
Note - listed below are the Family members who left belongings which were placed in an Archive Box. There were, of course, some other family members who chose other career paths, and most daughters possessions passed to their husbands/children's family.

 **Ignatia (Tia) Stuart nee Peverel (1736-1770) (Hufflepuff)**  
The Peverel family were once renowned for being able to permanently enchant objects, the most notable being what became known as the three 'Deathly Hallows' including the Invisibility cloak, which passed to the Potter family through Tia (The Wand was famously stolen via murder soon after it was made, and the Resurrection stone was apparently left to the second brothers wife's younger sister after his death). Whereas items made by other craftsmen generally stop working after a while, or need to be re-enchanted every few years, enchanted goods made by the Peverels do not fail unless they are damaged. However due to poor choices, bad luck and jealous rivals, the family dwindled and died out, leaving Tia as the last of the Peverel name. She taught her son Robert Stuart (legitimate son of 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'!) the art of Enchanting, practically from his birth and encouraged him to keep detailed notes recording all of his work and experimentation, a habit which he in turn encouraged in his descendants. Thus ensuring that the Peverel legacy would live on long after the name was lost.

Archive Box contains  
Main Primer and supporting texts for learning the Peverel Runic System and Enchanting techniques  
Original Peverel Invisibility cloak. (Currently removed by James Potter)  
Clothes, personal effects

 **Peverel Enchanting System**  
Unlike modern standard Enchanting techniques, which usually involve applying spells and standard runes to already completed items, The Peverel system uses a combination of unique runes and equally unique spell weaving and embedding techniques which are incorporated into each item as it is made. This is a much more labour intensive (and therefore expensive) way of enchanting objects, but, unlike other systems which require regular maintenance, such as rune re-charging and spell re-application (which, admittedly, can be a source of regular income for the enchanter), the Peverel system results in an enchantment which lasts as long as the object does.

Essentially the Peverels invented an entire magical language and rune system (much like Tolkien 'invented' languages and alphabets for Lord of the Rings). One of the more interesting features of these runes is that once they are activated the runes will automatically sink into the surface they were inscribed on and will resurface only when summoned by a process which is, again, known only to the Peverels. Thus Peverel runes are essentially undetectable, uncopyable and unalterable to anyone else. Built in copyright protection.

Likewise, the spell weaving and embedding techniques were developed and refined by various successive Peverels and later, Potters, over many generations and are equally exclusive to the family.

Despite the obvious sophistication and superiority of the Peverel/Potter enchanting system the fact that it is so labour intensive means that, although their work sold for very good prices, they generally didn't have the high stock turnover that other enchanters appear to achieve, and, rather than opening their own shops they generally preferred to sell their work on commission and/or through already existing shops and dealers.

 **Robert Stuart/Potter (1755-1898) (Ravenclaw)**  
Specialised in Ceramics and Pottery. Nothing particularly fancy or exciting, just practical, useful items. All made to be unbreakable (and even unchippable!) and with useful Enchantments such as plates that keep food warm, cups that keep drinks hot or cold, pots and containers with expanded interiors and which preserve the contents, cooking pots which did not need an external heat source (great for travellers), vases that preserve the flowers so they never die (his wife reputedly had a collection of the most perfect and beautiful blooms in Brittany). Although his name is largely forgotten except to collectors, much of his work has been handed down through families for generations and are still in use today.

Archive Box contains  
4 Everfresh vases (three now, I borrowed one for the cottage)  
Assortment of storage pots  
Assortment of cooking pots  
Two uncompleted dinner services.  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Clothes, personal effects

 **Robert's son, James (Jimmy) Potter (1785-1914) (Hufflepuff)**  
Gravitated towards woodworking, eventually becoming a Master Carpenter. Started out making shipping boxes and display cases for his fathers ceramics, branched out into furniture during apprenticeship and Mastery, and later specialised in items such as boxes and trunks, again with enchantments such as unbreakable and preservation and expanded interiors. Introduced features such as auto-shrinking and 'featherlight' activated by a simple wand-tap. Jimmy invented enchantments which prevented contents of a box or trunk from shifting once the lid was closed, no matter how the box or trunk was tossed around.

Archive Box contains  
9 Trunks of various sizes and capacities  
15 Boxes of various sizes and capacities  
3 Desks  
1 bookcase  
2 chairs  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Clothes, personal effects

 **Robert's second son, Edward Potter (1798-1929) (Slytherin)**  
Started out training under his father and older brother but, after spending some time as a traveling sales-man hawking his father and brothers wares, branched out into making magical tents. Edward completely revolutionised the tent making industry, setting new standards for comfort and security. Edward introduced internal features such as solid walls, kitchen and bathroom facilities, 'leave-in' furniture, magical heating and cooling, self cleaning stable facilities for horses and even, later in his career, built in ward stones which deployed automatically on set-up. Up until this point 'magical tents' had merely been muggle tents that were enchanted to be bigger on the inside and had to be emptied before they could be packed. Edward created portable homes which could shrink down to the size of a pack of cards with all their contents undisturbed, and even be disguised as some innocuous small book or box. Unfortunately, Edward was the only tent-maker in the family. Before and after his death many rival tent makers attempted to re-create Edwards 'portable homes', and while some managed to mimic some features, none ever truly succeeded. Due to wars, feuds, general strife and rival tent-makers dismantling his tents to try and figure out how they worked (and not being able to put them back together again) very few of Edwards tents have survived to present day.

Archive Box Contains  
7 tents of various styles and configurations  
Various incomplete tents and associated materials  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Clothes, Personal effects

 **Edwards daughter, Mathilda Potter (1844-1943) (Ravenclaw)**  
Married Matthias Ollivander (1844-1943) (Garrick Ollivanders Uncle) and joined the Ollivander family business of wandmaking. (As far as I can tell the Ollivanders are unaware that Mathilda's personal Toolbox, workbooks and designs ended up in the Potter Archive)

Archive Box Contains  
Several incomplete wands in various stages  
Collection of wand woods and cores  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Clothes, Personal effects.

 **James's son Henry (Boxie) Potter (1805-1943) (Hufflepuff)**  
Joined and eventually succeeded his father James in the trunk and box making business. Boxie invented multi-compartment trunks, boxes, cupboards and drawers, collectively referred to as 'Boxie Boxes'. Unfortunately, due to the way the magics interact, multi-compartment spaces cannot be shrunk, and there are therefore none stored in the archive. (However we have a wonderful seven compartment 'Boxie' Sideboard in the kitchen and a set of five compartment 'Boxie' Drawers in our Bedroom upstairs. Inherited from Charlus and Dorea, and will hopefully stay in the family for many generations to come.)

Archive Box Contains  
4 'Normal' trunks of various sizes and capacities.  
Tools and implements.  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects

 **James's daughter, Mary Potter (1808-1943) (Hufflepuff)**  
Specialised in warding along with her eventual husband Colin Bones (1805-1943). Among other things, they collaborated with Edward to integrate ward stones into his tent design and created several 'standard' ward schemes for his tents. Edward frequently referred customers to the couple for more specialised tent-wards. Several of their proposed standard ward schemes were rejected by the ministry as making it too easy for the owner to completely 'disappear' "...thus being of most likely use by criminals and thieves to evade the law. Honest, law abiding citizens have no need for such wards..."

Archive Box contains  
8 sets of unused ward stones.  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects

 **Henry's son, Robert (Bob) Potter (1824-1943) (Slytherin),**  
Joined his father in the box making business, specialising in jewellery and strong boxes, collaborating with his Aunt and Uncle Bones to include extensive security and protections. Whilst initially very popular these boxes later fell out of favour when, upon the death of the owner those who inherited the contents of the boxes could not open them, and often could not even find them.

Archive Box contains  
18 Strong Boxes of various sizes and configurations  
4 Jewellery Cases  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects

 **Henry's daughter, Robert's twin sister, Anne Potter (1824-1943) (Gryffindor),**  
Started by designing and making decorative locks, hinges and fittings for trunks and boxes. Quickly moved on to specialising in fine jewellery and amulets, mostly made on commission for various jewellery retailers or private customers. Collaborated with her Aunt and Uncle Bones to add many practical spells and protections and 'personal wards', such as personal 'anti-portkey' wards, shields, etc. She also included many cosmetic options, such as hair-pins guaranteed to keep your hair tidy, clean, shiny and healthy (originally invented for her own use, she actually conquered the Potter hair!). Anne had a short-lived collaboration with an Oculist, Sean Bones, younger brother of Colin, designing and making spectacle frames. However two years into the partnership Sean, who was apparently something of a womaniser, had an unfortunate, and fatal, encounter with the angry husband of a paramour, after which Anne dropped the line.

Archive Box contains  
Various unfinished pieces of Jewellery  
Various quantities of Precious metals and stones.  
Tools and implements  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects (including some of her own Jewellery, I will need to match them up to designs to find out what they do).

 **Random Trivia** : I believe Albus Dumbledore owns a pair of Anne Potter spectacles, which he probably bought from Sean Bones. The lenses automatically adjust to any prescription, and, according to Annes notes, the frames allow the wearer to 'see' magic and make the wearers eyes twinkle 'in a jolly fashion'. He probably has no idea the frames were made by a Potter!

 **Anne's daughter (illegitimate, father unknown) Elizabeth (Betty) Potter (1871-1943) (Ravenclaw),**  
An accomplished seamstress, clothier and milliner. She created and incorporated many charms, spells and protections into her clothing and hats. Including auto-fit, anti-fraying, auto-repair, auto cleaning and even custom colour-change charms. She is also the inventor of auto-knitting needles, crochet hooks, looms, sewing needles, embroidery needles, tatting bobbins, measuring tape and various other 'auto' craft implements. Betty appears to have been more interested in creating new designs than in re-making old ones. She is reported to have once boasted that she only ever had to make anything once. After that, if she needed more, they would make themselves.

Archive Box Contains  
Extensive range of fabrics and materials.  
Broad range of 'Auto' craft implements in original packaging.  
Large collection of historical clothing, both Muggle and Magical fashions, all labelled with date, style, materials, purpose/function etc.  
Mannequins.  
Tools and implements.  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects

 **Roberts son Richard Potter (1846-1943) (Ravenclaw)**  
Cartographer/Artist, made several innovations regarding 'animating' maps, drawings and art. Specialised in producing estate maps as well as more general maps which could be used to supply accurate apparation information.

Archive Box Contains  
Large collection of unframed paintings and illustrations, both animated and unanimated.  
Several unfinished Maps in various stages of production  
Art materials (unused canvases, paper, paint, ink, pencils etc)  
Tools and implements.  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects

 **Richards son Charles (Charlus) Potter (1885-1978) (Hufflepuff)**  
Chef/Restauranteur Charlus and his wife Dorea for many years ran a restaurant, 'The Hot Pot' in Hogsmeade. He specialised in food preparation, and made many, unpublicised, innovations in food preservation and storage, self cooking pots and pans, animated knives and utensils, food preparation charms, and recipes. Unfortunately his efforts to encourage his son's interest in cooking had the opposite effect and probably contributed to James dislike of Potions at school.  
Charlus and Dorea were both tragically killed during a Death Eater raid on Hogsmead when their restaurant was burned down by fiendfyre with them, their staff and customers trapped inside.

Archive Box Contains  
Various experimental Pots, Pans and Containers in various stages of production.  
Various Recipe Books  
Tools and implements.  
Workbooks, design diaries and production notes.  
Furniture, Clothes, Personal effects

 **Events of Note - The 1943 Potter Family Massacre**  
On June 28th, 1943, the annual Potter family picnic ended in disaster when the entire family was attacked without warning by a large band of Grindelwalds followers, the Knights of Walpurgis. It is widely believed that the Knights had intended to use the field, just outside Hogsmead, as a staging ground, and the attack was therefore a simple case of the family being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Whatever the reason, the attack was sudden, unprovoked and devastating, resulting in the death of every family member present. The sole surviving members of the Potter family were Charlus and Dorea, who were unable to attend the picnic due to their commitments to their recently opened Restaurant 'The Hot Pot'. The couple lost not only all of Charlus' older relatives, but also their own two year old daughter, Eleanor, who had been brought to the picnic by her grandparents. Charlus and Dorea were, quite naturally, devastated.  
Once the estates were settled they refunded all the unfinished comissions and placed their belongings in the 'Potter Family Archive' at Gringots.  
It is generally believed that this tragedy is what finally spurred Albus Dumbledore into taking direct action against Grindlewald and his followers.

 **Charles son James 'Prongs' Potter (1960-N/A) (Gryffindor)**  
Auror/Prankster - Whilst not an Artisan on the level of his forebears (Charlus once observed to me that James lacks the patience required for consistent high quality craftsmanship) James has created several interesting objects. Whilst at school he used Richards notes on cartography, combined with the Bones' notes on 'ward-jacking' to create The Marauders Map. The Map is actually tapping into Hogwarts wards, something commonly believed to be impossible. While all four 'Marauders' were involved in physically exploring and mapping out the school, the creation of the map itself was almost entirely James work.  
In another innovative creation, my James recently utilised Betty's designs for hats with built in cosmetic aids, combined with his own transfiguration expertise to make a 'Poly-Hat', a hat that works like Polyjuice on the wearer (i.e. It actually changes the body, not just an illusion), with just one form, which lasts as long as the hat is on. The hat is only visible when not being worn and can only be removed by the person wearing it. It transforms the wearer into a nondescript adult male, approximately 30 years old, light brown hair, brown eyes, not ugly, not handsome, completely forgettable appearance.

Archive Box Contains  
Production Notes for Marauders Map  
Production Notes for Poly-Hat

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Harry stood up and placed the parchment and book back in the alcove thoughtfully. His mothers overview of the Archive had been very interesting. He obviously had a very talented family, every single one of them was an inventor of some kind, and he was going to enjoy exploring each box thoroughly. But right now the words 'Portable Homes' and 'Archive Box Contains seven tents' were echoing through his mind. That sounded promising. Very promising indeed! With an air of suppressed excitement Harry selected the box labelled 'Edward Potter' and carried it out into the afternoon sun.

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 **Authors Note - Sorry for the Info Dump, hopefully you didn't find it too boring. Harry's going to be making good use of his new resources so it was kind of necessary, and I figured it was better to get it all out at once than try to dole it out in bits and pieces and probably miss something important.**


	6. Chapter 6, A Place to Lay His Head

**Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.**

 **ch6 A Place to Lay His Head**

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 _Courage is the capacity to conduct oneself with restraint in times of prosperity and with tenacity when things do not go well._  
 _James V. Forrestal_  
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Harry considered the amount of space around him, then turned and tapped the Archive door with his wand, picked up the box that resulted and put down Edwards box in its place. He gently tapped the lid and stepped back. Somewhere in the back of his head he was somewhat bemused by how quickly he had become accustomed to things expanding and shrinking on command. The structure that appeared in front of him was virtually identical to the archive, only the words on the Door were different

Edward James Potter,  
B.12th March, 1798  
D. 21st December, 1929

Harry confidently opened the door and went inside, then stopped. This, on the other hand, was different. He was in a small vestibule with two doorways in front of him, one labeled 'Personal Effects' and the other simply labelled 'Work'. Harry hesitantly stepped through the 'Work' doorway and looked around in growing approval. In front of him was a very large, very well organised room, almost a small warehouse, with the walls on either side lined by low cupboards with open shelves above and the wall opposite the door covered with tall cupboard doors that reached from the floor to the roof, all in a rich golden wood. In the centre of the room was a big, solid looking work table, the surface very clean, but well used and lightly pitted with scratches and gouges. It was, essentially, Harrys dream work-space. Harry shook himself, he could investigate more thoroughly later. Right now he needed to find the tents.

He walked over and scanned the shelves on the right, somewhat bemused to see boxes the size of a document box labelled with things like 'red bricks', 'oak beams', 'granite boulders' and 'unworked teak logs'. However none of them said 'finished tents', so he crossed to the other side of the room. Here there were no boxes, there were books and folders labelled with things like 'Safari 1-12', 'Merchant 1-8' and several bulging folders labelled 'Custom Commissions' with a year label. Harry once again stifled his curiosity and kept searching along the shelves. Promotional leaflets... advertisements... posters... There! Finished tents! Harry looked at the 'tents' bemusedly. They looked like simple wooden boxes. He laughed at himself, well of course they did! Each box was about the size of a pack of cards and was wrapped in an old fashioned looking handwritten paper label, which appeared to describe what kind of tent they were. Two were labelled 'Happy Camper, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathing room, combined dining and living area. Standard ward package.', another was the 'Extra Happy Camper' which was the same, but with three bedrooms, and there was an 'Extra, Extra Happy Camper' with four bedrooms. Harry smirked slightly and looked at the others.

Tent number five was an ornately gilded box with two labels, one a piece of parchment with the words 'Commission #65. Cassius Lockhart, 'Big Game Hunter', 40% deposit paid 18th Jan, 1862' and below that 'Deposit defaulted' 18th Jan, 1872' on it. The other, fancier, label claimed the tent was a 'Safari Special' A sumptuous ten bedroom tent with kitchen, pantry, dining room, living room, sitting room, library, lecture room/theatre, and game storage room. Built in Climate control and 'High Security' ward scheme'.

Tent number six was a 'Back to Basics' One main room with cooking area and window seat. Bathroom. Basic wards'. That sounded like a pocket motel room, probably not as good as the Happy Campers.

Tent number seven was just wrapped in a scrap of parchment that said 'Commission #89. Arboram Spore. Traveling Herbologist/Dealer. 40% Deposit paid 23 May, 1899', and then scrawled below that 'Deposit in Default, 23 May, 1909'. So he had five 'standard' tents and two special commissions that were never collected and never sold. That must have been annoying.

Harry considered for a moment, then picked up the 'Extra, Extra Happy Camper, the Safari Special and Commission #89, carefully sliding off the labels so he could replace them later. He turned and went back outside, closed the door and tapped it with his wand. He placed Edwards box next to the main archive, and put the 'Extra Extra Happy Camper' on in its place, tapping the lid with his wand and taking a step back.

This time what appeared before him was not a tall cubicle with a door, but something which did actually resemble a tent. It was was only as tall as his shoulder, about two meters long by one meter wide and made of a bright turquoise material. There was a guy-rope at each corner, terminating in a block of stone about the size of a mans head. Harry looked at it sceptically then walked forward and ducked through the tent flaps. The inside was exactly as described. A comfortably sized, undecorated living area with plain white plaster walls and two windows. How could there be windows on the inside, but not outside? The room was just big enough for a couple of sofas and a small table. A doorway opened into a small, basic kitchen which contained an antique looking cast iron oven and hotplate, with a small panel of symbols where the dials and knobs would usually be. A sink. A sink? Harry turned on a tap and raised his eyebrows at the water gushing out the tap and running down the drain. How on earth did that work? The bedrooms were basic, just plain unfurnished rooms, each with a small window. The Bathroom had a claw footed bathtub, toilet and washbasin. All in all he felt that, although it was a little dull looking (it reminded him of Mrs McKinty's apartment) he could be quite comfortable in here. The walls were nice and solid looking and it felt like he was in a real building. Harry took a last look around then headed back outside. He tapped the tent flap with his wand. Nothing happened! Harry frowned and examined the tent door more closely, eventually spotting an odd looking symbol right at the top of the door flap. He tentatively tapped it with his wand and sighed with relief as the tent turned back into a box. He replaced it with the 'Safari Special' and once again tapped the lid, took a step back... and gaped.

"Ho-lee shi..."

He blinked in stunned shock at what had appeared in front of him. It was bigger than the 'Happy Camper' had been. Much, much bigger. It filled up the entire paved area and hung out over the stream, and it was... it was... Harry couldn't think of words to describe it. It looked a bit like some kind of crazy Hollywood temple tent. The walls were bright gold canvas with a glittery metallic sheen, and were covered with pictures. Moving pictures! Of stylised lions, elephants and giraffes and zebra and monkeys. There was an awning held up by two solid looking carved stone pillars with torch sconces and in front of him were two ornately carved gilded wooden doors. Harry blinked again and hesitantly walked inside.

Harry stared around wide-eyed, no longer even able to blink. The inside was even fancier than the outside. He had walked into a mansion! There was a massive entryway with a golden marble floor, a grand staircase in front of him, an actual crystal chandelier sparkling above him... Harry walked around dazedly taking in the huge sitting room, fancy dining room... Everywhere he looked there was shiny gold gilding and polished marble and exotic animal skin rugs and enormous mirrors and couches upholstered with more exotic animal fur and strange looking animal heads on the wall. The bedrooms upstairs were just as opulent, with each room lushly carpeted and extravagantly furnished with yet more exotic fur upholstery and each with a huge ensuite bathroom all done up in gold and fur and polished stone and... It was too much. Way, way, WAY, too much. There was no way he could live in a place like this! He couldn't imagine how anyone would want to! No wonder Edward hadn't been able to sell it! He turned and half jogged swiftly back out the doors. After a short search he found the same symbol hidden among the carvings on one of the pillars, and tapped it, sighing in relief as he picked up the little gilded box and returned it to the pile. That one was definitely out.

With some trepidation he picked up the other 'Commission' box, set it on the ground and tapped it. He was pleasantly surprised to find a solid looking wooden door, complete with doorstep and doormat, in front of him, the door frame was set into a tall slightly odd looking tent, similar to the archive boxes but with dark royal blue canvas walls, sloping out slightly, with four guy-ropes stretching out from each corner and terminating in four solid stone pillars each reaching just below hip height. The roof of the tent sloped up to a point in the centre and the side facing the door had an odd looking round glass window set into the fabric. Harry opened the door and walked inside.

He looked around appreciatively, liking the place instantly. It was spacious without being too big. Rustic looking, but well finished. Just inside the door there was a small vestibule area, which opened onto a nicely sized unfurnished living area with a solid slate stone floor, and walls panelled in the same golden wood as Edwards work room. To his left was what appeared to be a study alcove, a wide, semi-circular shaped recess with a skylight overhead, the alcove was lined with empty shelves and was just deep enough to comfortably hold a desk and chair. Straight ahead was a well proportioned stone fireplace, with large picture windows on each side. Oddly, the windows didn't show the view outside, instead he was looking out at a picturesque view of a lake on a sunny day. Harry walked further in, seeing a doorway into what looked like the kitchen. He slowly turned, seeing three closed doors and a... Greenhouse. Harry stopped and stared, openmouthed, before dashing forward to open the glass door set into the glass archway. He stopped and stared again. He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming! He was standing in an absolutely enormous glass roofed greenhouse. It was the size of a football field! Big enough to grow everything he could ever want and more, with tall drystone walls around the sides and sun shining down through the glass arching above him. Dozens of neat, rectangular garden beds, each with an odd stone block on one corner topped in more of those odd symbols. There were tidy gravel pathways between each plant bed. The roof was high enough that he could grow trees if he wanted. There was a big shallow pond in the centre. At the far end was a door that looked like it opened out onto the far side of the tent. It was perfect. It was beyond perfect! He HAD to be dreaming!

Harry wandered around the greenhouse for almost an hour in a happy daze, mentally stocking the plant beds, examining the corner with the tool stands, potting bench and seedling racks, before he pulled himself together enough to investigate the rest of the tent. Not that it mattered, he'd already made his choice! He exited through a second door he had noticed on the left wall and found himself in a very long, narrow room with broad counter tops on one wall and tall storage cupboards lining the other. Not seeing any other way out he walked, with a gait that looked remarkably like skipping, back through the greenhouse (HIS Greenhouse!) and re-entered the main tent.

Opening the first door on the right, he found himself in a well appointed bathroom, with a shower alcove, a very large irregularly shaped bath tub set into the floor, a hand basin, a tall linen cupboard, and a separate alcove for the toilet. Walking back towards the door he noticed that there was a small, strange looking, multicoloured dial above the inside doorknob, a bit like the occupied/vacant dial he'd seen in public toilets. There was a blue segment facing up, and green and purple segments facing down. Harry shrugged and opened the door, passing back into the living area, and opened the next door onto an empty room with a wooden floor, plain white walls, a large window on one side and another door on the other. A bedroom. He walked back into the living area and opened the third door onto another empty room, identical to the first, including another door. Thinking it might be some kind of walk in wardrobe Harry walked over, opened it, and was surprised to find himself in the bathroom again. He looked back at the dial on the door with a frown. The green side was now facing upwards. He closed the door and turned the dial so the blue side was upwards, opened it, and looked into the living area with disbelieving eyes, he closed the door again, spun to the purple side and opened the door onto the first bedroom. Harry laughed giddily. That. Was. So. COOL!

Harry played with the door for a while, discovering that turning the dial so that a dividing line was facing up would lock the door, before wandering back out into the living area and across to the kitchen. It was a good sized room with the same slate floor as the living area, it was well lit by a huge window on the left, this one with a view of a mountain meadow covered in wildflowers. The walls were lined with benches topped with the same slate as the floor, but smooth and polished. There were cupboards below the benches and shallower cabinets above. On the wall opposite the doorway was another, slightly larger, antique looking oven and stove top and next to that was a door which opened into a square room with a skylight and walls entirely lined with floor to ceiling shelves. A pantry. Excellent. Turning back into the room he spotted a book sitting on the counter top. Curiously he picked it up, and then smiled happily. It was an instruction manual. Perfect!

He was about to pull himself up onto the counter so he could sit and read, when his stomach gave a sudden rumble. Frowning he glanced at his wristwatch and nearly dropped the manual in shock! It was 7pm! With that realisation came another. He was absolutely ravenous! He glanced consideringly at the strange stove then shook his head. He could play around with that tomorrow. For now he would go back outside, throw together a quick meal, skim through the manual while he ate, then put away the other tents and decide what to do next.

One thing was certain. Harry wasn't going back to the Dursleys tonight. Harry was going to stay right here. In fact Harry wasn't going back to the Dursleys ever again!

Harry had found his new home.

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Authors note - I readily admit, I stole the idea for the bathroom door from 'Howls Moving Castle' by Diana Wynne Jones. That door is the epitome of coolness. I want a door like that!


	7. Chapter 7, Settling In

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.

ch7 Settling In

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 _With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity._  
 _Keshavan Nair_  
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Harry ate his dinner (A honey soy chicken, vegetable and noodle stir-fry, a recipe he'd picked up a few months ago while rolling up spring rolls at Mrs Yeoh's Chinese takeaway when her daughter was away at a Girl Guide Camp) as he skimmed through the manual, finding out several very interesting things about his tent. For example, those odd symbols on the oven were temperature controls. He just needed to tap them with his wand to get them to work. One of the kitchen cupboards was a 'Chiller' and again the temperature was controlled by tapping the symbols, or runes, as the book called them, so he could do anything from 'chill' to 'freeze'. Any dishes placed in the sink would be automatically washed, dried and stacked on the drain board. The pantry... The pantry was amazing! Everything that was placed on the shelves stayed exactly the way it was. Hot food stayed hot, cold food stayed cold. Fruit stayed ripe. Bread stayed fresh. Meat would never go off. Apparently it wouldn't matter if the food was there for one day or a hundred years, nothing on those shelves would ever spoil, or rot, or dry out or change in any way. Harry was nearly dancing in his seat with glee! He'd be able to make stews! and roasts and soups and sauces and all sorts of 'big quantity' things that he'd been wanting to try but hadn't been able to store without a freezer. He'd be able to cook in batches instead of single serves. Oh he was going to have so much fun trying all those big recipes he'd always wanted a go at...

And the Greenhouse! The greenhouse was even better, if that was possible! Although according to the manual it was called a 'Conservatory', not a greenhouse. Whatever it was, it was brilliant! Those stones with the symbols, the runes, at the corner of each plant bed? They were the controls for an adjustable self-watering schedule and (Harrys eyes nearly fell out of his head when he read this) climate control! Each garden bed was it's own little, fully adjustable, micro-climate. They even controlled the amount of light the plants received. He'd be able to grow everything! All the time! Even the plants that didn't usually grow well in England, like bananas and oranges and pineapples and... well... everything! Harry was almost beside himself with glee. There was apparently even a composting area he hadn't noticed, one that kept the smells in. That room with the benches and the cupboards was a 'preserving room and brewing area', and most of the cupboards had the same enchantments as the pantry. According to the manual the room was designed for preserving and storing potions ingredients for selling on to apothecaries, but Harry saw no reason why he couldn't store his excess produce in there.

He was so glad that Great (Super! Wonderful! Amazing!) Uncle Edward hadn't been able to sell that tent!

Harry reluctantly tore his eyes away from the tent manual, cleaned up his dinner dishes then gathered up the unwanted tents and the archive. Opening up Edwards box he headed inside to return the rejected tents, replacing the labels and putting them back on the shelf. As he was leaving he paused by the door labelled 'Personal Effects'. According to his mothers list, he remembered, some of the other archive boxes had furniture stored in them. He had been intending to make a nest of clothes and towels to sleep on, on the floor, and maybe buy a second hand camp stretcher tomorrow, but if there was a real bed available now in one of the archive boxes... Harry nodded and headed back outside. Using his ancestors furniture might feel a bit weird at first, but it would be cheaper and easier than buying his own, and they weren't doing anyone any good just sitting in storage. He shrunk down Edwards archive and opened up the Family archive instead, heading inside and setting Edwards box back in its spot. After consulting his mothers list he decided to look at his grandparents box first. He picked it up and went back outside, closing the door and shrinking it down. He was just about to lay Charlus' Archive on the ground when it occurred to him that it would probably be easier to move heavy furniture into position if he opened the box inside the tent. The manual had said that the only 'expanded space' that couldn't be used in the tent was the multi-compartment 'Boxie' boxes, so opening an archive box should be fine. He headed back into the tent (His new home!), set the box on the floor, tapped the lid, took the, by now automatic, step back and opened the door when it appeared in front of him.

Once again there were two doors labelled 'Work' and 'Personal Effects', he opened the latter and found himself in a small room lined with shelves laden with neatly labelled cardboard shoe boxes. Harry frowned slightly and looked at the labels. 'Crockery', 'Kitchen Utensils', 'Books', 'Sitting Room Furniture'. Harry pulled the last box off the shelf and opened the lid. Inside, neatly packed in the box, were what looked like a set of dolls furniture. A Small sofa and matching armchairs, a miniature coffee table, a tiny hat stand, a rolled up rug the size of a handkerchief. Harry stared at them perplexedly and then considered what he'd learned about magic today. Of course! They'd been shrunk!

He looked at the tiny sofa set. They appeared to be upholstered in a rich chocolate brown suede leather. They'd probably look very nice in his sitting area. He picked up the box and carried it out into the tent.

Pulling out the tiny sofa again Harry set it on the floor facing the fireplace in the general position he wanted it and gently tapped it with his wand. He grinned. There in front of him was a very comfy looking, full size, three seater sofa. He sat down and grinned again. It really was comfy! It was even better than the ones at the Library! He bounced back up, set the other two chairs across from it at either side of the fireplace and enlarged them too. Moments later it was joined by a wooden coffee table and a hat stand, which he carried over to stand near the front door. He gently unrolled the tiny rug and looked at it. It was a deep cream, gold and burgundy design. Nice enough, but he didn't think it would look right in this room, so he rolled it back up and looked at the other furniture. A couple of side tables, a gramophone on a stand, a display cabinet of some kind... Nothing he really wanted, so he put the lid back on the shoe box and headed back into the Archive box to see what else he could find.

Two hours later Harry looked around his new home with a satisfied air. There was a nice wooden four seater dining table with matching chairs sitting next to the window closest to the kitchen, in what was now the dining area, and one of the bedrooms was set up with furniture he'd found in a box labelled 'James' old bedroom'. There was a single four poster bed with dark teal curtains, a bedside table, a large wardrobe with an expanded interior, a chest of drawers and even a full length mirror which had floated up and stuck to the wall when he'd tried to lean it there. A big rug in abstract swirls of aqua, teal and chocolate brown covered most of the floor. In another box he'd found blankets, pillows and sheets, which he'd used to make up the bed.

All in all a very successful evening! He'd even checked the manual and figured out how the lights worked when he realised the sunlight coming in through the fake windows was turning to dusk. Not that it was very complicated, all he had to do was say the word 'Lumos' for the lights to come on, and 'Nox' to turn them off again. The louder he said 'Lumos' the brighter the light would be, and if he whispered it it would be just barely enough to see by.

He'd had a slight problem when he'd unshrunk a chair and then decided he didn't want it. He hadn't been able to find any rune to tap to shrink it back down, and had eventually had to put it back in the archive the way it was. So, until he learned how to shrink things himself he'd have to be careful and be absolutely certain he wanted something before he enlarged it. But over all he'd had a lot of fun!

Harry glanced at his watch. 10.53 pm. Way past his usual bed time. He shrunk his grandparents box back down and retuned it to the family archive, which he carefully placed on the dining table next to the tent manual. Then he headed back outside and into his hut, using the battery powered lamp he kept there to gather up a towel, some clean clothes, pyjamas and, as an afterthought, his owl, still in her cage (he really did need to find a name for her). He made his way back into the tent, carried the owl into the conservatory and opened the cage door so she could fly around if she wanted. He knew that wizards used owls to send mail, but he was a bit hesitant to let her out on her own outside. What if she flew away and didn't come back? She seemed to be happy to be out of the cage though, and butted her head encouragingly against his fingers when he stroked her tentatively, before taking off and soaring around the big open space.

He left her to her fun and carried the clothes into his room. Dropping them on the chest of drawers he kept the towel and headed into the bathroom for a quick shower before bed. He might not know where the water came from, but he did know that hot running water was one of the greatest things mankind had ever invented!

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When Harrys watch alarm woke him at 5.45am the next morning he didn't get up straight away. He was just too comfortable. He had never slept so well in his life! The bed curtains gave the illusion of an enclosed space, which was good because he'd had terrible trouble adjusting to sleeping in a larger area when he moved to Dudleys second bedroom, the mattress and pillow were nice and soft, without being too soft, the blankets were just the right warmness. He felt like he was cocooned in a warm, fluffy cloud!

He was so happy that he'd finally escaped the Dursleys completely, and he'd even done it in such a way that he doubted anyone would even look for him! Harry carefully went over everything Hagrid had said to the Dursleys that night. No, he was right. Never once had Hagrid actually said anything about Harry coming back to them, or them taking care of him in the future. In fact he had specifically said they couldn't stop Harry from leaving! They would happily assume that he was living entirely with the Wizards from now on, and the Wizards would assume he was still with the Dursleys. All Harry had to do was keep his mouth shut and no one would ever guess that he was living on his own. He was finally free!

Eventually he managed to convince himself that the nice bed would still be there when he returned to it that night and he got up, revelling in the softness of the carpet under his bare feet and admiring the way the early morning sun lit up the mountains outside his window as he dressed. Maybe one day he'd visit somewhere like that for real. He pondered what he wanted to do today. He needed to plan out the planting in the greenhouse, and get those seedlings transplanted, along with all the other plants, although he could leave the annuals that would be harvested before September where they were. He needed to figure out how to move the fruit trees. He needed to transfer all his stored food from his cellar into his new pantry. He needed to read the tent manual more thoroughly. He needed to go to the nursery and have a shopping spree for all the plants and seeds he wanted, and do the same at the Supermarket and Butchers too. He needed to go through all the furniture in all the archives and decide exactly what he wanted to use. And after all that was done he needed to go through all the 'Work' archives and get a feel for what his resources were. He needed to dig up his money and take it to Gringotts, and while he was there he needed to count the Wizard money that was already there. He wanted to buy that cookbook, and find a book on how to care for Owls...

There was a lot to do. So much that he was tempted to skip work today, but the thought of the approaching school year, where he wouldn't be able to earn any money at all, changed his mind. Going through the archives could wait till he was at school if it had to, and as for the rest he had a whole month to get everything done. If he rushed around trying to do everything at once he'd just make mistakes. This morning he could read the manual, figure out how things worked and copy out the instructions for the runes in the kitchen and conservatory. Then he would go out to work at nine as usual, and this afternoon he could move the food and practice using the stove. After dinner he could make a start on planning out the Greenhouse.

There. That was today planned. Tomorrow would take care of itself.

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As Harry worked that morning his mind was once again pre-occupied with assimilating the mornings reading, although this time it was the tent manual that was occupying his thoughts. He'd copied out the instructions for the oven and cooling cupboard and taped them up in the kitchen, then settled down to read through the manual more carefully. By the time he'd left for work Harry's respect for Great Uncle Edward had reached a level of veneration usually reserved for gods and super-heroes. That tent really was a marvel! It couldn't possibly be more perfect for him, and Harry was thanking every higher power he'd ever heard of that the commission had never been sold.

He could change the colour of the walls! Or the plaster parts anyway. All he had to do was touch his wand to the wall he wanted to change and say 'Mutare Murum' while visualising what he wanted the wall to look like. It had sounded easy on paper, but he'd discovered it was much harder in practice. The first few times he'd tried it, in his bedroom, it had come out all muddled and distorted, and he'd eventually settled for making the walls just one plain colour instead of the more ambitious pattern he'd originally tried to do, and even then he hadn't quite managed to match the light teal in the carpet like he'd been trying to. 'Visualising' was surprisingly hard, but hopefully, with a bit of practice, he'd be able to do better.

He'd been ecstatic to discover that the linen cupboard in the bathroom was actually a 'laundry cupboard'. All he needed to do was throw his dirty clothes (or towels, or blankets, or any other fabric, fur or leather items), into the hamper at the base of the cupboard and close the door. Five minutes later, they would re-appear cleaned, pressed and neatly folded, sitting on the middle shelves. The cleaning process would not affect any magic on the clothes, and any loose non-fabric items left in pockets, like coins or keys, would be banished to a lower cupboard shelf. When Harry had read that he'd immediately tested it out on yesterdays clothes and it had worked perfectly, causing him to jump around the bathroom and do a rather undignified song and dance routine. Up until now he'd been using an old-fashioned washboard to scrub his clothes every Saturday, and it was easily his most disliked chore, especially in winter. He liked his laundry cupboard even more than the dish-washing kitchen sink!

Another chore he wouldn't have to worry much about any more was cleaning! Any dirt or crumbs or dust that landed on the floors or counters, and even on the carpets and furniture he'd brought in, would be vanished one hour after it landed. He wouldn't need to sweep or mop the floors, or dust the shelves, it would all take care of itself. Even fallen leaves and debris on the paths in the Conservatory would be vanished, and the glass roof would never need cleaning. What with the plant beds being indoors, and no wind to blow seeds around, he probably wouldn't have much weeding to do either. Aunt Petunia would be so jealous if she knew!

The entire tent was climate controlled, just like the plant beds in the conservatory. There was a compartment hidden behind a wall panel near the front door, which apparently held something called a 'ward control stone' which allowed him to select which 'wards' were active and had the climate controls for the tent. From what he'd read, those 'ward' things sounded like some kind of magical security system. There were different types, one could be set to make Muggles ignore the tent, another could do the same for Wizards and make it so that only he knew it was there. There was a ward that would turn the tent entirely invisible. There was one that concealed internal magic from being detected by anyone outside. There was one that drove away creatures, animals and active plants (whatever those were) and set up a safe perimeter, and there was space to add more wards if he wanted to. Apparently once he was 'keyed in' as the owner of the tent he'd be able to activate and de-activate the wards just by tapping the stone with his wand. There was no information on how to become 'keyed in' however, apparently it was supposed to be done by the person who sold the tent, so he'd have to investigate Edwards archive and see if he could find instructions there. Another thing to put on his 'to-do' list.

The views from all the windows were adjustable. There was a list of 'pre-set' views, which he'd had fun looking at (the 'Jungle' view was particularly cool, with all the colourful birds and snakes, and he had even spotted a jaguar draped over one of the tree branches!) or he could set it to show the real view outside, which was how he'd left it. Unfortunately those fake windows couldn't be opened, there was apparently a limit to what even magic could do, but Harry wasn't complaining.

There were only two windows in the tent that could open. The circular window above the front door was an 'owl window' and apparently there was another over the conservatory door as well. They would let post-owls, and only post-owls, in and out. When Harry had read this he'd run into the conservatory in a bit of a panic, and sure enough his owl had been nowhere to be seen, but a few moments after he had realised that, a panel in the roof had swung open and his owl (he really did need to name her) had swooped through and landed on top of cage in front of him hooting in a way that had sounded oddly like reassurance. He had gently stroked her head and commented "I guess I didn't need to worry about you flying off and never coming back then." And the owl had nodded in agreement. It nodded! That had decided Harry that he really, really, urgently, needed to find some information on caring for post owls. Perhaps there would be something in the box of books in his grandparents archive? He made a mental note to check all the books in all the archives that evening. If he didn't find anything on owls he'd just have to make an emergency run to Diagon Alley tomorrow, because he was totally out of his depth here. It really was terribly irresponsible of Hagrid to just give him an owl and not make sure he actually knew how to take care of it! However he had decided to have a little faith and offered to leave her out of her cage today if she wanted, feeling a little silly about talking to a bird, but she had nodded again and then flown back out the owl window, and when he had left for work she'd been perched on the roof of his hut watching him calmly.

All this was running through his head as he smiled and greeted people, carried their shopping, and swept out the rear courtyard of Sally's Cafe. Finally midday arrived, he bought some groceries (including a whole chicken, a big knob of ham and a two kilos of beef mince!) and decided, in a fit of extravagance, to buy himself a burger and fizzy drink for lunch, just this once. That way he would be able to get straight on to business when he arrived back at his kingdom.

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Five hours later Harry stretched as he shelved the last of the books he'd retrieved from the Archive. At first he'd only intended to hunt out a book on Owls, but looking through his Grandparents books he'd found cookbooks, and spell books and so many other interesting looking subjects, that he'd eventually decided to just shelve them all. There was no point to empty bookcases after all. He had made sure to write the name of the original owner inside the cover of each book, just in case he ever wanted to put them back in the archive one day, but for now he had a respectable little library on his shelves, covering a wide range of topics. He'd retrieved his school books from his trunk and put them all on their own shelf, his craft journals and sketch books and even his small collection of secondhand 'muggle' paperbacks, including all of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Swiss Family Robinson and a pile of Enid Blyton books, had joined the collection, although he'd decided his garden diary would be better kept in the conservatory.

When he had come back from work, the burger sitting heavy in his stomach and his blood zinging from the unaccustomed fizzy drink, he had taken his tent from his pocket, opened it up and carried his groceries into the pantry and then set straight to work. He had managed to completely clear out his hut and cellar in just under two hours. He'd set up the tent right outside the hut door and carried everything straight in. All his clothes had been transferred into the drawers and wardrobe in his new room. His recently completed table and chair had been moved into the kitchen, along with all his pots and pans and eating implements. His 'food pyramid' and the 'recommended dietary intake' list (pamphlets he'd received when someone visited the school and gave a talk on the importance of a healthy diet for growing children, causing him to add a daily serve of meat to his diet and sparking his milk habit) were taped onto the pantry door. His books and papers had been shelved and everything else had been piled on the dining table. Then he'd grabbed his biggest basket and carted all his stored food directly into the pantry. It hadn't taken nearly as long as he'd thought it would. He'd even pulled down all the shelves and stacked them in the second bedroom.

Within two hours he'd completely cleared out both rooms and, after a short rest with a glass of milk, he had started going through all the books in the more modern archives. Thankfully he had found some books about owls. One slim volume just about what they could do and how to care for them, the next book was a larger, older tome describing different types of domesticated magical animals, and seemed to be aimed at helping people choose an appropriate pet. It had a large section describing different breeds of owls and their strengths and weaknesses. The third book was the 'Tayledras Guide to Breeding Owls for Fun and Profit' and appeared to have detailed instructions on caring for owls in every stage of life. He put those aside to skim through while he was eating dinner, and as an afterthought he added his history textbook to the pile. Maybe he'd find a good owl name in there.

But now, it was time to tackle the stove and see what it could do.

First of all he grabbed his gathering basket and went outside into the garden, picking two nice ripe tomatoes, a carrot, a brown onion, some chives, basil, rosemary, oregano, water cress and lettuce along with a selection of fruit and berries.

He returned to the tent, went into the kitchen, put his basket down next to the sink and washed what he had gathered. Setting the fruit and berries aside he placed everything else on his old wooden chopping board, retrieved a few cloves of garlic, spices, cornflour, cooking oil and salt from the pantry and started peeling and chopping. Ten minutes later he pulled out one of his larger frying pans, splashed a bit of water in it and set it on the stove top. He picked up the instructions he'd copied out and compared it to the runes on the panel in front of him, then carefully tapped several runes with his wand. He watched the water in the pan closely as the water started to bubble gently. A few minutes later he tapped a rune to increase the heat slightly, and smiled as the bubbling got a little faster. Once the water had all evaporated he drizzled a bit of oil in the pan and started sautéing the onion and garlic. When it was nicely softened he added a quarter of the the mince he had bought earlier, browned it thoroughly, then stirred in the chopped tomato, herbs and spices. Once he was satisfied it was all thoroughly cooked he poured in some water with a few spoonfuls of cornflour mixed in, just enough to cover the mince, and left it to simmer while he pulled out a mixing bowl and another frying pan and got to work making tortillas, deliberately measuring out five times the quantity he normally used.

Half an hour later he scraped the reduced mince mixture into a large bowl next to the nice big stack of fresh tortillas. He put together two burritos, layering the mince mixture with shredded lettuce and cress, grated carrot and cheese and topping it all with generous dollops from a large tub of sour cream he'd bought that day. Then he covered the still hot bowl of mince and plate of unused tortillas with aluminium foil and put them in the pantry. Next time he wanted a burrito, they'd be right there waiting for him. He smiled gleefully, then frowned thoughtfully. He was going to need more bowls and dishes for storing things in. Shrugging he poured out his usual glass of milk, sat at the kitchen table and began to eat.

Mmmm. Burritos were yummy!

He'd made them before, but he'd only ever had them with sour cream once. It had always come in tubs that were too large for him to finish before they went off, and he hated throwing away food so he'd never bothered with it again. But now that he had a pantry where he didn't have to worry about the more delicate foods going off he'd been very happy to try it again.

For desert he had a small bowl of fruit and berries topped with plain yoghurt, another hard-to-store luxury he'd stocked up on today. Then he piled his dirty pans and dishes in the sink and watched, grinning, as they washed and dried themselves. It was official. Magic. Is. Brilliant!

Tearing himself away from the kitchen Harry collected his largest sketchpad, a pencil, ruler and tape measure and spent the rest of the evening in the conservatory, drawing up a map of the space, laying it along side his map of the gardens outside and planning out what would go where, writing out a list of all the new plants he wanted and laying out a tentative work schedule for the next few weeks. By the time he showered (gleefully dumping his dirty clothes into the laundry cupboard when he undressed, and just as gleefully retrieving the clean clothes after he'd showered and dried) and gratefully climbed into his oh so comfortable bed, he was tired but content.

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 **Authors note - Yes, most of the features in this tent are pure wish fulfilment for me. No I'm not ashamed of that. I hate wasting food and I utterly despise housework!**

 **Also, Someone asked if Harry was going to start using 'Henry' as his every day name. Nope, He's going to stay Harry. The only thing that's changed is that now he knows it's a nickname. Not many other people know that though, which may or may not be useful in the future...**

 **Random Trivia - Prince Harry's real name is Henry Charles Albert David Windsor.**


	8. Chapter 8, Time Flies

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.  
Ch8 Time Flies

 _*****************_  
 _Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy._  
 _Dale Carnegie_  
 _*****************_

 **Two weeks later.**  
 **16th August, 1991  
** **4pm**

Harry gently eased the last half-grown lettuce into its new home, tamped down the soil and sat back with a satisfied sigh. He dusted the dirt off his hands, picked up his trowel and stood, gazing around his conservatory and basking in the warm glow of accomplishment he'd previously only experienced when entering his little kingdom. He supposed it was the same. This was his kingdom too, only this one truly belonged to Harry and couldn't be taken away from him, even if it was somehow discovered.

He meant that quite literally. Three days ago, after many evenings spent searching Great Uncle Edwards archive, he'd finally found the instructions on how to activate and key himself into the wards on his tent. There were actually several methods, each offering different levels of ward security and he'd chosen one that made it so that other people could only enter his tent if he specifically invited them, and if his tent was ever stolen, confiscated or otherwise lost, all he had to do was 'Will' it to return to him, and it would. It didn't matter if the tent was up or down, if he called it the little box would appear in his hand, and when it was in box form only Harry could see it and only Harry could open it. He'd practiced summoning it, leaving it in his now empty hut and then calling it to himself at some point in between jobs, while he was out working. The first few times he'd had to concentrate so hard that he'd given himself a tension headache, but it had become easier as he got used to doing it. He didn't need to concentrate anywhere near as hard now, and he was certain that with a few more weeks of practice he'd be able to do it with just a moment's thought.

Harry carried his tools and the tray he'd been using to transport the plants along the gravel path towards the potting area, eyes skimming over neat beds of recently relocated plants, checking for signs of distress. Most of them seemed to have taken the move well. The blackberry canes were already starting to bud and the strawberries and raspberries were doing the same. The water cress he'd settled in a shallow section of the pond didn't seem to even notice it had moved. Some of the herbs and other plants had wilted slightly at first, but they'd bounced back after a day or two. Most of the remaining 'annual' crop plants he'd decided to simply harvest as much as he could before he had to go and leave where they were. His 'preserving' room already had a good supply of apples, berries, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, peas and beans, along with a bulging sack of sunflower seeds. He'd had a bumper crop this summer, and there was still more ripening that would be ready to pick before he left for Hogwarts.

By far the hardest part had been moving his fruit trees. Two Lemon trees, two pears and a hazelnut bush. They were all only two years old and grown from cuttings, so they weren't very big, and he'd pruned them heavily a week before he'd moved them to make them easier to move. He'd thought about trying to use magic to move them, his charms book had instructions for a levitation charm, but when he'd tried using the charm on a leaf it had somehow caught fire, and Harry had decided to leave learning actual spells until he had a teacher on hand to fix any mistakes. So he'd had to move the trees by hand. It had been a big job digging up the root balls, manoeuvring them through the conservatory door and then getting them into position in their new plant beds. He wasn't sure if they'd survive the move, according to his gardening books it was a bad idea to move them while they were fruiting, so he'd also taken several cuttings to strike, just in case. Sitting on his potting bench were over a dozen neatly labelled plant pots, sitting in little tents made of plastic shopping bags and wire. Along with his own fruit trees he'd borrowed (well, stolen would be more truthful) cuttings from various fruit trees in and around Little Whinging. He had taken several cuttings from each plant so hopefully at least one of each would take root and grow. Different varieties of Lemon, Pear, Apple and even a few samples of Peach, Plum, Nectarine and Cherry from an orchard just outside the village. He'd even taken some cuttings from some local Nut trees, a huge Walnut tree whose branches hung over a fence at his old school and a chestnut tree in a front garden a few blocks away. It was something he'd been wanting to do ever since he'd first learned how. He'd become very good at growing things from cuttings, but he'd always been wary of planting anything that could get tall enough to show over the fences that bordered his kingdom. All it would have taken was one curious home owner looking over the fence and it would have been all over! But now... now that wasn't a problem any more. He could grow trees. He had plenty of room.

Back towards the outer door of the conservatory he already had the beginnings of a small orchard. Two days ago he'd visited the really big nursery in Guildford and bought several small fruit trees and bushes which he hadn't seen growing in the area. He'd gone a little overboard and bought all the ones they'd had that were recommended for 'indoors'. Two types of Orange, a Mandarin, Avocado, an Olive tree, and two 'Cavendish' banana plants. Along with those he'd also bought many different packs of seeds, several large bags each of various types of fertiliser, and, on impulse, a mushroom growing kit. He'd had a moment of nausea at the checkout when he heard the total, but had swallowed it down, reminded himself this was a full years supply, and handed over the money, wheeling the heavily laden trolley out the door and around to the side of the building before glancing around furtively and enlarging his tent. Harry had been a little nervous about setting it up in such a public area, but the 'muggle repelling' wards had worked well and nobody had paid the slightest bit of attention to him as he unloaded his purchases inside through the conservatory door. He had closed up his tent, trundled the trolley over to the trolley-bay, and walked across the big carpark towards the 'Super' hardware store that was next door to the 'Super' nursery. He'd always wanted a wheelbarrow...

Harry wiped his tools down and put them away, took one last, satisfied look around, patted the handle of his nice, new, shiny, red wheelbarrow, and then ambled back into the living area of the tent. He'd finished up a little ahead of schedule and had some free time on his hands. He wandered into the bathroom intending to have a shower, but then stopped and looked at the big sunken bathtub. He hadn't actually tried it out yet and it might be nice to have a soak... Yes. He'd take a bath, he decided, and relax until dinner. After the work he'd been doing lately he was due a lazy evening.

Just before six pm a very clean and slightly pruny Harry wandered into the pantry carrying a plate. He looked over his options before serving himself some herbed chicken breast, tossed salad, potato salad and a herb and fetta bread roll. Eschewing the milk for once he poured himself a glass of chilled apple and lemon juice and carried his meal back through the kitchen, he hesitated at the dining table then shook his head and continued outside, sitting down in his usual spot and starting on his meal, savouring the hot chicken and the warm buttered roll. It was so nice to not have to cook every night now! By deliberately cooking in larger quantities he was slowly building up a buffet of cooked, always ready to eat meals. Which meant that when he didn't want to cook, he didn't have to.

Of course, he realised that meals were provided at Hogwarts. He probably wasn't going to need all this food while he was there. But he liked the security of having it available. He didn't think the teachers would withhold food as a punishment the way the Dursleys had, but knowing he was carrying a well stocked larder and a comfortable bedroom in his pocket made him feel a lot more confident about the prospect of living at a boarding school and submitting to the authority of a bunch of adult's twenty-four-seven. He was, to be honest, not looking forward to that at all. Not after living almost entirely by his owns rules for the last four years. He'd never had much luck with teachers, or authority figures in general, so having his tent available, a place where Harry was in charge, a tangible reminder of who he was, well, it was a lifeline, and he was going to cling to it.

Harry leisurely finished his meal and watched a dragonfly hovering over the stream for a while, then strolled back inside and dumped his dishes in the sink. He picked up his garden diary from the coffee table, updating it with a list of the plants he'd moved today, a sketch of the layout he'd planted them in, the climate settings he'd set those plant beds to, the produce he'd harvested outside, and any other thoughts he had about the garden. He'd started keeping a garden diary not long after he'd started planting his little kingdom, one of the more useful garden books at the library had recommended it, and over the years he'd found it very helpful to look back and see what had worked and what had not. Closing the diary he stood, and wandered over to the Gramophone he'd retrieved from his grandparents archive when the utter silence in the tent had started bothering him. He pulled out a random record from the collection that he'd found inside the cabinet. 'Scheherazade', by Rimsky-Korsakov. Worth a try. He'd never heard of most of the music in the collection but he'd enjoyed what he'd listened to so far. Once the music started, all deep and dramatic, he ambled over the book cases and looked over his collection of novels. He'd picked up a few new ones for 10p each from the second hand store that morning while he was looking for tupperware. With an amused smirk he pulled out 'Five go Camping' by Enid Blyton and returned to the lounge, looking forward to a lazy evening. Before opening the book, however, he contemplated what he would do the next day, now that he'd finished moving all the plants.

For the past two weeks he'd been re-locating plants in the early morning and afternoon, and spending his evenings searching Edwards archive for the instructions for keying himself into the wards and sorting through his ancestors 'personal effects'. He'd found all sorts of useful things, which were now scattered around the tent. He'd also glanced through the 'work' areas, although he hadn't understood much of what he'd seen in those rooms. He'd need to sit down and really look at the things there to figure out how they worked. He supposed he could do more of that, but... He wanted a break. He wanted to go out and do something different. He wanted to... to...

Harrys eyes drifted around the room, skimming over books and chairs and landing on a pile of eighteen dirt streaked tins sitting at one end of the dining table. Ah!

He wanted to take his money to the bank!

Harry smiled, stretched out sideways on the lounge and opened his book. Tomorrow he would go back to Gringotts.

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 **17th August, 1991**  
 **8.30am**

Harry walked into the big second-hand store in Guildford as it opened its doors for the day. He headed straight for the children's clothing section, hoping to find something that would pass as wizarding wear so he could blend in better at Diagon Alley. He'd stood out like a sore thumb in his muggle jeans and t-shirt when he went there the first time. Everyone he'd passed had stared at him like he was some kind of alien and he'd prefer not to attract that kind of attention again if he could avoid it. From what he'd seen when he was there with Hagrid, wizard boys his age mostly wore a long sleeved, loose fitting tunic top, some plain, some with decorative trim or embroidery around the neck, wrists and hem, all with a narrow belt around the waist and varying in length from just below their hips to almost knee length. The tunics seemed to get longer the older they were, with older teens wearing tunics from mid-thigh to mid-calf and the adult men wearing tunics from knee to ankle length. Most males also wore long loose sleeveless coats, from calf to ankle length, over that. Under the tunic they wore ankle length loose pants (although he'd noticed that the men with the full length robes didn't seem to bother), which were either worn loose over leather shoes or sandals, or tucked into boots. He was already wearing his old black leather school shoes, and he had a belt in his bag. He just needed the rest of it.

There was nothing suitable in the boys clothing section, or the girls zone for that matter. However in the night-wear areas he found a girls royal blue long-sleeved V-neck nightshirt, with white edging around the wrist and neck, in a lightweight poly-cotton knit. In another aisle he found a pair of boys flannel sleep pants in plain black. He also found a woman's black cotton house-coat. Which looked might it might be the right length for an over robe. It had long sleeves, but he figured he'd have plenty of time to unpick the seams, hem the arm holes and remove the belt loops during the train ride to London, he'd brought his sewing kit with him for just that purpose. He took his selection into a change room and tried them on. The nightshirt came down to mid-thigh and, with the pants and the house-coat he thought it looked relatively authentic. Certainly he wouldn't stand out as obviously as he had in his normal clothes. He wondered if the wizards knew they were walking around wearing Muggle pyjamas?

On his way to the checkout he stopped by the hat section and, after another careful analysis of what he'd seen on his birthday, he selected a black, fedora-style hat which adequately hid his scar and distinctive messy hair. He paid for his purchases and stuffed them into Grandmother Dorea's black leather messenger bag, which was, again, much more in keeping with what he'd seen people using in the alley than his own backpack. Plus, it had an expanded interior, so he could fit everything he needed in there without it getting too heavy.

Satisfied, he made his way to the station and boarded the train to London.

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 **10.30am**

Harry ascended the stairs at Gringotts, completely unremarkable in his faux wizard clothing and hat. He made his way over to a teller and asked to visit his vault, briefly handing over his key for inspection and following the goblin, Swingshot, who arrived to escort him to the carts. Once he reached his vault he explained to Swingshot that he wanted to count his money and would probably be there for several hours. Swingshot grumbled under his breath, glared, and then reluctantly pointed to a bronze ring hanging on a chain inside the vault.

"If you want to stay that long, I'll need to lock you in. When you want to leave you pull that chain, and someone will come let you out"

Harry blinked uncertainly. "Ooooookay. The lights will stay on with the door shut. Right?" Swingshot nodded impatiently. "Alright. I guess we'll do that then."

He entered the vault and Swingshot closed the door with a thud and a clank of locks.

"Right" muttered Harry. "Best get to it then"

He reached into his bag and pulled out his scales, a large quantity of brown paper bags, sticky-tape and a marker-pen. Sitting down next to the pile of knuts he started counting them onto the large dish end of the scales.

"One, two, three, four..."

...

"...four hundred and ninety one, four hundred and ninety two, four hundred and ninety three. Done! One galleon!"

He set out the weights on the counter balance and carefully levelled the scale. Adding and taking off single knuts to check the lee-way and using his marker pen to mark exactly where the level stopped. Then he tipped the pile of coins into a paper bag, taped down the top and marked the bag 'G1'.

He placed the bag against the back wall and started piling handfuls of knuts on the scale. Adding coins until it balanced and then tipping it in a bag and marking the value.

An hour and a half later he was done. Where the pile of knuts had been were neat rows of paper bags, set in rows of ten. There were 285 knuts left over, which he simply poured into his money bag. Harry counted up the bags and made a note in his newly purchased Vault Ledger. '145 Galleons in knuts (= £725)'

Harry stood, stretched, ate one of the burritos he'd brought with him, washed it down with some apple and blackberry juice, then sat down again and started on the sickles, making neat stacks of seventeen and rolling them in white notebook paper the way Mrs Ashley had showed him that time he'd helped her count a bucketful of money she'd collected for charity. One hour later he finished that pile too. Slipping nine sickles into his money pouch and noting down '588 Galleons in Sickles (= £2940)'

After stretching again Harry started counting galleons. Using brown paper to roll them into stacks of twenty. Two hours later he sorted the rolls into sets of five, adding them up until he reached a total of '11,304 Galleons (= £56,520)'

Giving Harry the grand total of... 12,037 Galleons (£60,185)

Harry pulled his muggle money from his bag, double checking that there were sixteen bundles, each of £1000, then put them back in the calico bag and set it in the corner. He'd kept just over £2000 in the tent, just in case he had some sort of emergency and needed it.

Harry sat back and smiled. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a tight ball of anxiety that had always been there, started to loosen. He had just over £78,000. That was a decent amount of money! The last time he'd checked a few months ago an undeveloped, five acre block of land in Shropshire was going for around £30,000 and he had over double that right here in front of him! Not bad for a days work!

Harry double checked the amounts and wrote them up in his vault ledger. Then poured his money pouch out into his hands. Why had he taken so many Galleons instead of Sickles and Knuts? he wondered. Counting it out he realised there was over fifty galleons worth of coins in the pouch. More than enough for what he wanted to buy. He wrapped up another 20 galleon stack and put 20 of the sickle stacks in his pouch instead, adjusting his ledger to show the change. He knew from experience that the only way to get rid of small change was to spend it before the big stuff.

Harry stood and pulled the brass ring, munching on his second burrito while he waited. The door opened a few minutes later and Swingshot peered into the vault as Harry walked out, brows rising slightly at the neat stacks of paper wrapped money.

"You done then?" He grunted,

"Yes, thanks, we can go" Harry replied cheerfully, climbing into the trolley as Swingshot locked the door.

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 **3.30pm**

Harry left the bank and made a beeline for Flourish and Blotts, heading straight for the shelf the cookbook had been on. Scanning the selection he found it and pulled it out. "Ha! Take that Hagrid!"

Truth to tell, he didn't really need it now. Charlus had a left a huge collection of cookbooks for Harry to look through, but that wasn't the point. There had been no valid reason for Hagrid to stop him from buying it. Harry wandered through the bookshop picking up 'The Big Book of Household Spells' and 'A Wizards Guide to a Healthy Garden' which seemed to be the only book in the Herbology section that covered gardening in general, instead of focussing on just magical plants. He paid for his selection, making sure to count out the money in correct change, instead of just handing over a galleon or two.

Next stop was the Owl Emporium, where he picked up a few boxes of owl treats for his owl, whom he had decided to name 'Hedwig', a name he had found in his History of Magic book. According to his books Post Owls generally preferred to hunt for themselves, but it was considered a good idea to give them a snack or two when you interacted with them, especially when you sent them off with a letter, or they delivered one to you.

Harry spent the next hour wandering the alley, learning the layout of the shops. He was rather disappointed to find his original observation was correct. There were no shops that sold second hand goods in Diagon Alley. He did find another alley, called 'Knockturn Alley' but he decided against exploring it. What little he could see from the entrance showed it to be frequented by people with cold eyes and furtive habits, and others who wore heavy cloaks with deep hoods hiding their faces on a warm summers day. He wasn't sure if Magical society had drug dealers, pimps and gangs, but if they did then this was the kind of place they would hang out, and those were the kinds of places he had learned to avoid. A decision he felt was justified when he overheard a Mother threatening her teenaged son with 'and if I hear you've set one foot in Knockturn you won't see your broom for a month!'. Obviously not a safe place visit.

Once he was done exploring Harry left Diagon Ally as anonymously as he had arrived and made his way back to the tube station, stopping at a public loo on the way and changing back into his normal clothes.

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 **18th August, 1991**  
 **12.30pm**

Harry walked into Little Whinging public library and approached the returns desk, smiling sheepishly as he handed his books over to Mrs Ashley, who gave him a mock glare when she realised how late they were.

"I'm sorry Mrs Ashley, I didn't mean to bring them back so late. These last few weeks have just been so crazy I forgot I had them until last night. How much are the overdue fees?"

"Hmf! That will be three pounds young man! Now what was so important that you couldn't bring them in on time, hmm?" She replied, trying to look stern, but her twitching lips gave her away.

"Oh! I found out that I'm going to be going away to a boarding school!" Harry replied happily, reluctantly handing over the money.

"What? How?"

"Well, a lawyer turned up on my birthday a few weeks ago wanting to talk to me. Apparently my parents Will set up some kind of trust fund for my education so that I'd be able to go to the same school they both went to. It's a private boarding school in Scotland."

"Scotland!" exclaimed Mrs Ashley in surprise.

"Yes. I leave on September first. I've been so distracted getting my uniform and school books and things I just completely forgot I hadn't returned these"

"Oh, well that's wonderful news Harry!" She said, tapping a few keys on the computer and surreptitiously sliding the three pounds back toward him. "We'll miss you of course, but it sounds like a great opportunity for you"

He smiled at her gratefully and pocketed the money. "Mmm. I'm kind of excited to go, but I'll miss you too. It's a bit scary to go so far away to where I won't know anyone at all. I won't be able to work there the way I do here, and I'll miss my favourite books here too. I wish I could take them with me." Harry finished mournfully.

Mrs Ashley stopped and stared off into space for a few seconds, then looked at him thoughtfully. "You know Harry, you're the only one who borrows most of those books, especially the older ones. If it wasn't for you they'd have been on the sales table years ago" she said slowly, gesturing at the table stacked with battered old books near the door. She looked at him a few moments longer, then nodded "How about you go around and pull out all your favourites and bring them over to that table over there" she pointed "and we can sort through them and see which ones you can have."

Harry stared at her in shock "Really?"

"Oh yes" she said, nodding decisively. "They won't stay on the shelves long if you stop borrowing them, the head librarian has been wanting to put a lot of them out for a while now, we only kept them because you borrow them so often. So go on, go bring over all your favourites and I'll come sort through them with you" she said, handing back the three books he'd just returned with a smile.

Twenty minutes later Harry had a stack of thirty books on the table. All the gardening, camping, history, home-renovation, first-aid, general health, cooking and craft books he had found so useful over the years.

"Alright Harry, lets take a look shall we?" Said Mrs Ashley, sitting down beside him. She sorted through the pile, pulling out nine of the newer looking books, leaving Harry with twenty-one older ones.

"Ok, those ones there still get some use, but these ones you can have if you want them. They'll be 20p each, is that ok?"

"That's great Mrs Ashley! Thank you so much!" Harry beamed.

"Oh think nothing of it dear." She smiled, helping him carry the stack over to the counter and starting on logging them out of the system "Like I said, they'd have been on the table years ago if it wasn't for you. I've been thinking of offering them to you for a while now. Now, I've still got that book on box making reserved for you, would you like to borrow it while you're here?"

"Oh, yes please." Harry replied, taking his new old books as they were processed, stamping them with the 'ex Libris' rubber stamp she handed to him, then cramming them into the cloth carry bags he always had with him.

Ten minutes later he handed over £4.20 and hefted his haul out of the library, hardly able to believe his good fortune. Pausing outside he thought for a few seconds before making his way around to the deserted staff-parking area behind the building. After a quick check for witnesses he pulled out his tent, enlarged it and put the bags of books just inside the front door, before quickly shrinking it down again, the entire exercise taking maybe ten seconds at most. Damn his tent was convenient!


	9. Chapter 9, Getting Ready

Harry Potter and the Hidden Kingdom.  
Ch9 Getting Ready

 _*****************_  
 _A man of courage flees forward, in the midst of new things._  
 _Jacques Maritain_  
*****************

When Harry returned to his Kingdom that afternoon, he grabbed some lunch (warm roast chicken, baby spinach, swiss cheese and home made garlic mayonnaise, wrapped up in a tortilla. Yummy!) and consulted his to do list. He'd gotten the most urgent things out of the way. He'd transplanted his gardens into the conservatory, he'd bought more plants and stocked up on fertiliser. He'd moved all his belongings into the tent. The only thing left to do outside was continue harvesting the remaining crops as they ripened and that only took half an hour every morning. It was all done, he could leave at any time.

But was he actually ready to go to Hogwarts?

Did he have everything he would need to live at a magical school? It had occurred to him yesterday, when he was putting together his outfit for his visit to Diagon Alley, that his normal clothes probably wouldn't work at Hogwarts either. He'd long ago learned the importance of wearing appropriate clothing. Of looking respectable in the eyes of the people around him. When he had first started offering to carry peoples groceries he'd still been wearing the too big, raggedy old clothes that the Dursleys gave him and he'd had a lot of trouble getting people to even listen to him long enough to make the offer. He'd looked like a beggar so people had assumed he was begging. Once he'd earned enough money to buy a few good second hand t-shirts, a pair of jeans that actually fit and some decent shoes, he'd found he had a much easier time of it. Suddenly he wasn't a 'dirty urchin begging for spare change', he was a 'charming local kid out to earn extra pocket money'. The difference in attitude had been dramatic and it was a lesson that had had a profound impact on him. Image was everything. These days it was automatic for him to make sure he was clean and well presented when he went out in public. To smile at potential customers and look them in the eye. To be polite and cheerful, even when he didn't feel like it. He might be a not-quite-homeless-street-kid, but he didn't look or act like one and that made all the difference when it came to how people treated him. Even Dudley's gang gave him less trouble now that he didn't stand out so much as a target.

But wizards wore different clothes from muggles, so if he wanted to blend in with the kids at Hogwarts he was going to have to have to look like they did. He closed his eyes and once again went over the clothes he'd seen children wearing on both his visits to the alley. He knew what he needed. He just had to figure out how to get it. Maybe Great Cousin Elizabeth could help.

He also needed to do something about his school trunk. By now he was so used to things shrinking and growing at a touch that he couldn't help feeling that the trunk Hagrid had chosen for him was hopelessly... well... Muggle! It was just a plain, boring, fire-engine red trunk. It wasn't bigger on the inside, it didn't shrink, or float, or do anything at all. Quite apart from anything else it was going to be a real pain to get back up onto the bridge when he left.

He remembered his Mothers archive summary had mentioned several of his ancestors had left trunks and boxes in their archives. He decided to spend that evening searching them out and see if he could find one a bit more useful. And maybe a nicer colour too, he'd never been very fond of red.

l}={}={}={l

He eventually settled on a trunk he found in James 'Jimmy' Potters work archive.

The trunk was plain dark brown oak, bound in black iron which on closer inspection he noticed had a subtle oak leaf and acorn pattern etched into the metal, and the curved iron handles sported a light wood-grain effect. This was a trunk that would be easily overlooked, but the workmanship was of extremely high quality and Harry found that he liked it very much. It occurred to him that this trunk was almost a physical representation of the Potter family motto. Strength through Obscurity. This trunk wasn't flashy, but it was solid.

Harry opened the lid. The main body was much wider and deeper than it appeared from the outside. Harry felt he could lie down in it quite comfortably if he wanted. However on the inside of the lid, standing up in front of him, was a mass of narrow horizontal strips of oak, each no wider than his finger and with a small black iron knob, shaped like an acorn, at each end. Harry was somewhat perplexed, but if he'd learned anything over the last few weeks it was that when it came to magic appearances didn't mean much. He reached out and tugged on one of the knobs and wasn't nearly as surprised as he felt he should be when the thin strip of wood slid out smoothly towards him to reveal a drawer. A nice, long, deep drawer. Harry closed it and started checking the drawers methodically from the top, each drawer was the same, long and deep, and he counted fifty drawers in total. More than enough to hold his clothes and other school supplies without having to sacrifice organisation for space. Harry grinned. One shrinkable school trunk, and so much better than the unwieldy bright red box Hagrid had made him buy.

He closed the lid, then tipped the trunk back onto it's side and scanned the base for the item number he knew, from looking at other trunks made by Jimmy, had to be there somewhere, quickly spotting 'Potter Baggage, DT34' incised near one corner. He stood and moved over to the shelf of design journals, flipping through them until he found the right product notes. DT stood for 'Drawer Trunk', and apparently this was the last one that had ever been made. He sat down and looked over the notes, discovering several hidden drawers concealed within the re-enforced edges, both inside and outside the trunk, along with instructions for securing the trunk and drawers with passwords. He carefully copied down all the relevant information and placed it in one of the hidden inner-drawers. After a little thought he smirked and secured all the hidden drawers with the password 'King Henry the Ninth', and set the main password for the trunk as 'Uncle Edward', in honour of his favourite ancestor.

Harry put the design journal back on the shelf, tapped his wand on the hasp of his new trunk to shrink it, and put it in his pocket. He was about to leave when his attention was caught by the three desks standing against the opposite wall. It occurred to him that he still needed a desk for his study alcove. He'd seen several desks among the other 'personal effects' but he hadn't been able to see much difference between them and had been hesitant to un-shrink something that big, but here were three desks already at full size. It wouldn't hurt anything to look at them.

He ambled over starting at the first desk. A rich dark brown wood, with a narrow band of lighter wood inlaid about a third of the way in. There were several drawers and the back quarter of the desk was slightly raised, with a low stand of cubby holes. It was a nice, solid desk, but nothing spectacular. The surface of the desk was slightly scuffed and worn, with a few darker patches that looked like ink may have been spilled at some point and stained the wood.

The second desk was... girly. It was smaller and more delicate looking than the other two, with spindly, fragile looking legs. The desk top showed an intricate inlaid design of flowers, butterflies and ribbons made of many different types of wood and shell. It had two little drawers underneath on either side and also had a raised back with several small drawers and cubbyholes set between wood carved to look like flowering vines. The craftsmanship was exquisite, the best it could be, Harry could tell that at a glance. But it was girly. Harry didn't want a girly desk.

The third desk was the biggest, with a massive flat top decorated around the edges with a very subtle inlaid design of oak leaves, and an equally subtle large design of thistles surrounding some kind of heraldic rose in a lighter coloured wood inlaid in the centre. There were three deep drawers on either side, but other than that there didn't seem to be anything remarkable about it. Harry was about to return to the first desk when the thought crossed his mind that that unremarkable-ness was, in itself, rather remarkable. Every single thing he'd seen here that Jimmy Potter had made had had some kind of hidden trick. The more unremarkable a piece was, the more amazing the hidden surprise would be. So, what did this plain, boring looking desk hide? He walked back over to the shelf with the design journals and eventually found the right one. It took a while to find because unlike all the other desks, which were all in the same book, the desk he'd been looking at had an entire book to itself. And for good reason. Apparently that desk was Jimmy Potters mastery work! The big 'final exam' piece an apprentice crafter made to showcase his skills to the guild and prove he was worthy of 'Master' status. Clutching the book, Harry dashed back to the desk and carefully compared it to the designs in the book, before reaching out with his finger and tapping three times on a specific piece of inlay. Immediately the back quarter of the desk rose into the air, revealing an elaborate maze of cubby holes and doors, the surfaces inlaid with more geometric designs, interspaced with stylised magical creatures, dragons, phoenix, unicorns and hippocampus to name a few, all done in the same subtle wood tones seen on the desks surface.

Harry consulted the journal again then reached over and carefully traced his finger along a section of carving, causing the rose in front of him to rise up and reshape into an elegant book rest. For the next hour Harry played with the desk, finding secret compartments, useful reconfigurations, and all sorts of fascinating little details. Eventually he reset the whole thing back to it's original form and put the journal down. The desk was a masterpiece of a masterpiece, there was no doubt about that, and maybe he'd been reading too much Enid Blyton lately but he loved that so many secrets were hidden in such an unassuming looking piece of furniture. He glanced back at the first desk and then, in the spirit of fairness, he searched out the design notes for that one too. He discovered a hidden set of ink wells, and a couple of secret drawers, a small safe, which he was surprised to discover contained a little pile of sickles and knuts. But there was nothing that could even come close to comparing to Jimmy's masterwork. Harry was definitely going to have that desk for his study area. All he had to do now was figure out how to move it.

After a bit of thought he wound up using a pair of roller skates to move it (Mr Challoner from the 'Toy and Hobby' shop had given them to him after Christmas last year. They were the last pair he had in stock, bright neon green, and he hadn't been able to sell them, even at a reduced price, because apparently all the kids wanted roller-blades now. So he gave them to Harry as a 'Christmas Present' the next time Harry did some work for him. Harry hadn't particularly wanted them either, but he had smiled and thanked the man anyway). He put a desk leg in each skate on one side, then picked up the other side and rolled the desk towards the door, stopping every few meters to rest his arms. He had expected to have to do some complicated manoeuvring to get the desk through the doorway, but to his delight the door frame widened when he approached it allowing him to simply roll straight through. After that it was a simple procedure to roll the desk into position in front of the bookcases and remove the roller skates.

Once he'd retrieved a desk chair (he decided to use the chair he'd been unable to re-shrink on the first night) Harry spent the rest of the evening sitting at his desk with the Design Journal making a list of the compartments and how to access them.

l}={}={}={l

 **19th August, 1991**  
 **1pm**

The next afternoon, once he got back from the mornings work, Harry opened up Elizabeth Potters archive. He'd only given it a quick glance before now, just enough to see that it contained several odd looking tables, and many large strangely shaped contraptions, but his Mothers list said that there was fabric and 'auto' craft implements, which he would hopefully be able to use to make himself some wizard style clothing.

He wandered across the large studio towards the three tall cupboard doors at the far end of the room, assuming that was where the fabric was most likely kept. Opening the first door Harry fell back with a shocked yell. People! It was a room full of people! Naked People! Men, Women and even Children, all just standing around. Naked!

After a few moments, as his heartbeat gradually slowed back down to something approaching a normal rhythm, he noticed that none of the people were looking at him, or moving at all. Gathering his courage Harry slowly walked through the doorway and approached the closest person.

'H...Hello?' he stuttered, waving his hand in front of the naked mans face. There was no reaction. The man didn't blink or move or do anything at all, and after a few seconds Harry realised that he wasn't even breathing. He was just standing there. Harry hesitantly touched his arm. The skin was soft but cold, and had a slightly waxy texture. It didn't feel like real skin. Rapidly losing his nerve Harry swifly backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.

Nervously he opened the middle door and this time he managed to not yell as the door opened onto a long corridor, also full of people, although this time, thankfully, they were clothed. He hesitantly approached the closest person on the left, a blonde woman in an old fashioned dress, standing next to a brunette man in a pinstriped suit and hat. Neither of them moved. He spotted a plaque on the wall next to the lady.

 **1942.**  
 **Muggle.**  
 **Womens casual day wear.**  
 **Rayon print dress.**  
 **Undergarments- Nylon Stockings, Brassier, Girdle, Rayon Slip**  
 **Accessories - Wool Felt Hat, Snake Skin Hand-bag**  
 **Snake skin low heeled shoes**

The man in the suit had a similar sign next to him, and looking around Harry realised that every person in the room had the same. Suddenly it hit him. Elizabeth was a fashion designer. These weren't people. These are mannequins! Extremely, disturbingly, lifelike mannequins, but still just mannequins. Harry heaved out a sigh of relief and looked around with fresh eyes. This must be the collection of 'historical clothing' mentioned on his mothers list. Wandering further down the gallery Harry quickly realised that they were organised in chronological order, getting older the further in he went, with Muggle fashion on the left and Magical fashion on the right.

The further in he went the more apparent it became that while Muggle fashion had gone through many rapid and drastic changes over the centuries, switching between huge poufy dresses and slim skirts, narrow restrained jackets and enormous spangled knee length coats, Magical fashion had hardly changed at all. Wizarding fashion seemed to have mirrored Muggle fashion up until the 15th century, which, he remembered from when he'd skimmed through his history text looking for a name for Hedwig, was about the time when the 'Statute of Secrecy' had been introduced. Since then Magical fashion had changed very little. Modern males wore loose drawstring pants instead of the fine knitted hose their older counterparts had worn, the robes and over-robes had become simpler and less bulky over time, but the overall style of modern robes was still very similar to the 15th century 'Scholars robes' they had derived from. Womens clothing had changed a little more, losing the 'chemise' in the late 1700's and gradually transitioning into something very similar to the mens robes, but with a little more shaping around the bust and waist, a wider 'skirt' and, usually, a lower neckline. Harry browsed for a while, marvelling at the elaborate clothes rich muggles used to wear, but eventually left, gratefully closing the door. Even knowing they were just mannequins it was still unnerving being surrounded by so many lifelike figures, especially given how deafeningly quiet it was.

Opening the third door Harry hit pay-dirt. He found himself in another large store room crammed with bolts of fabric. Everything from sheer muslin to heavy canvas. Sumptuous silks, satins and velvets along with damask and wool worsted. In one corner there was a rack holding a range of furs and huge leather hides of various weights, everything from heavy tooling leather to delicate suede kid-skin, to several gargantuan rolled up scaled hides which he was shocked to see were labelled 'Dragon Hide'. Oddly, most of the fabrics were plain white or ecru. Even most of the leather was natural which Harry found somewhat odd. Maybe Elizabeth had preferred to dye the fabric herself?

Harry wandered back out into the main studio and looked around, trying to get a feel for the place. The room was full of odd looking contraptions, but nothing he recognised the purpose of. Eventually he approached the biggest table in the center of the room. It was long and wide, with a raised angled panel at one end, and an odd assortment of slots and niches around the other three sides. Looking at the panel he found it was covered in buttons and dials and slots. At one end there was a section containing 10 identical colour charts, labelled 'Colour A', 'Colour B' and so on, each with a moving cross section which allowed a specific colour to be selected. Harry was excited to see at the top of the panel the words 'Betty's Brilliant Raiment Replicator'. He dashed over to the shelves at the side of the room and started hunting for the journal to explain how the replicator worked.

The magical machine, he couldn't think of any other way of describing it, was simultaneously very complicated and incredibly simple. It worked off a series of templates. You selected the template for the garment you wanted, inserted another template for the required size, selected the colour you wanted, loaded up the needed materials in their designated spots, hit the 'start' button and it would make the garment. There were additional templates for decoration, like embroidery or beading or something called 'broderie anglaise'. Some garment templates allowed you to add on your choice of ribbon, lace or fringe. It was simple in its execution, but complicated in the sheer number of possible variations to every design.

He soon discovered that Betty had created hundreds of templates. Deciding to start with something simple Harry picked up a bulging folder labelled 'Pants' and leafed through the pages. Each page showed a front, back and side view of the garment, and the opposite page listed recommended fabrics, required notions and a diagram of where to place them on the replicator. The further into the book he got the more outlandish the designs seemed to get. Flicking back to the front he eventually decided on a design labelled '02 : Basic drawstring trews'. Once he found the right drawer he flicked through the templates, pulled out the matching number and set it to one side.

Before he could go any further he needed to get his measurements. Luckily, according to the 'Raiment Replicator's notes, Betty seemed to have created a machine to do that as well. Pulling down another, slimmer, journal he moved over to another device sitting on a side table. It was about the size of a large shoe box and made of wood. At one end, sitting in a niche, was a rolled up tape measure, at the other end was a wide slot.

Harry consulted the instructions and then, sighing, he stripped down to his underwear. He hesitantly picked up the rolled up tape and touched it to his chest. Instantly it sprang to life, snapping out to full length and zipping around him in a manner similar to the one at Ollivanders, winding swiftly around his body, arms, legs, feet and even his head. Finally it coiled itself back up and stopped, floating gently in front of him. Harry plucked it out of the air and placed it back into it's niche, where it gave a faint pulse of light and went still. The box, however, started making a soft whirring, chugging noise and a minute later a square of what looked like transparent glass popped out of the slot on the side with a soft 'ding!'. Harry picked it up and looked at it. Suspended within the glass was a shimmering holographic image of himself surrounded by hundreds of tiny numbers.

An hour later Harry nervously checked over the table. There was now a bolt of soft white cotton/linen blend hanging at one side of the table, he had placed two black metal eyelets in one of the niches on the other side and two matching black cord ends in the niche next to them. At the far end he had loaded a huge reel of white cotton thread onto a protruding spindle. The slot labelled 'Garment Pattern' held the appropriate template token, as did the slot labelled 'Measurements'. The first colour panel 'Colour A' had been set to a deep slate grey. Finally deciding that everything was where it should be, Harry pulled out his wand and, holding his breath, tapped the big red 'START' button.

Instantly things started moving, a length of fabric shot across the table as a pair of scissors appeared from somewhere and began cutting out pieces of the pattern. Once the pieces were cut they floated up into the air while the jagged ends of the roll of fabric seemed to blur and pull back on itself. Moments later the blurring faded leaving the the fabric with a nice straight edge and the bolt rolled itself back up again. Meanwhile the cut pattern pieces, along with several lengths of cotton thread, had fed themselves, one by one, into a slot at the end of the table and re-emerged thirty seconds later from a similar slot at the opposite end, now the slate grey colour he had selected. The scissors had gone back to wherever they came from and were replaced by several needles which threaded themselves with the dyed cotton thread and dived for the pattern pieces. Two minutes of swiftly flashing needles later the eyelets and cord ends lifted from their spot and darted into the melee. Seconds later it was all over. The finished trews drifted to the side of the table and folded themselves over a protruding rail, the needles darted back into their home and all movement ceased, leaving a stunned Harry staring open mouthed at the empty space.

Blinking Harry picked up the finished garment and looked at it. It seemed to be extremely well made, with perfect french seams and tiny, almost invisible stitching. He tried them on and was delighted to find that they not only fit perfectly, but were also extremely comfortable. Much more comfortable than his jeans. Grinning Harry sauntered back over to the control panel, reset the colour to a deep forest green and tapped the 'START' button with his wand.

Two hours later Harry was the proud owner of five pairs of trews, five coordinating tunics and three over-robes. He had branched out a bit with the tunics, remembering that the majority of the people he had seen in the alley had had some kind of decoration around the cuffs, neck and hem. He had consulted the 'Trimmings' design book and selected five different embroidery patterns, so his bronze-brown, blue-grey and sea blue tunics each had a different geometric design at the edges, his forest green tunic (a few shades lighter than the pants) had a darker green oak leaf design and his pale blue tunic had an unusual silvery-grey design which reminded him of dewy spiderwebs. For the over robes he had reused the oak leaf pattern, one of the Geometric designs and the Spiderwebs. It had taken much longer to decide on the designs than it had to actually make them. He had been enjoying himself so much he hadn't really wanted to stop, but then his natural frugality had kicked in. This should be more than enough for him to wear in his free time, and he would feel really silly if he made twenty outfits and then got to the school and discovered that he'd missed some subtle point of fashion which made his creations inappropriate.

Browsing along the shelves of design catalogues Harry saw many books devoted to every possible type of clothing, hats, gloves, scarves, shawls, cloaks, undergarments... there were even books of designs for bags and soft toys and... Harry stopped, shoes? Harry took down the book and leaved through. There were canvas shoes, leather boots, sandals and slippers, high heels, low heels and no heels. Flicking to the front of the book Harry looked for the name of the machine he needed. 'Shoe Maker'. Duh. After a bit of searching he found the appropriate instruction book and a few minutes later he made his way over to an odd looking contraption sitting in a corner of the room. It was a big square box, open at the top, about waist height on an adult, with a control panel similar to the Garment Replicator on one side and the by now familiar slots and niches lining the three other sides. It appeared to work the same way as the Raiment Replicator. Flicking through the design book Harry decided to try making a pair of slippers. He'd never had slippers before, he'd only ever bought himself school shoes and trainers, but it might be nice to have something soft and warm to wear in the mornings and evenings. Harry started searching out materials.

One hour later Harry had three new pairs of shoes. The slippers were amazingly comfortable, made of dark brown fuzzy wool material on the outside, lined with soft lambs fleece and with flexible leather soles with some kind of padding that made it feel like he was walking on a cloud. He almost couldn't bear to take them off they were so nice!

The second pair were very similar to his old school shoes. Polished black leather lace ups. The only real difference was that instead of hard rubber these shoes had thick laminated leather soles. He'd been intending to buy several pairs of school shoes in the second hand shop before he left, in increasing sizes to get him through the year (his feet had been growing very fast lately) but if he could make his own that was even better!

The last pair of shoes he had made on a whim, a pair of ankle boots made in a soft chocolate brown suede and lined with heavy silk. They were soft and comfortable and went nicely with the clothes he had already made. Harry loved them. They were the nicest shoes he had ever had.

Happy with his days work he put all the templates, materials and notions back where they came from, and, happily wearing his new trews and slippers, returned to his tent to prepare his dinner.


End file.
